CPT coding for turbinate procedures

by Steven F. Isenberg, MD | Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Transnasal turbinate surgery requires individualized clinical judgment because of the variety of anatomic sites, surgical techniques, and types of instrumentation involved. It is important to keep all these variations in mind when billing for turbinate surgery procedures, so that your practice will be reimbursed properly. For example, if the middle turbinate is removed during endoscopic ethmoidectomy (CPT code 31254 or 31255), or endoscopic polypectomy (31237), the removal of the middle turbinate should not be reported separately.Turbinate excision/submucous resection codes 30130 (“excision inferior turbinate, partial or complete, any method”) and 30140 (“submucous resection inferior turbinate, partial or complete, any method”) should be reported separately. You should document that you entered or excised mucosa and preserved it when using code 30140. Simply reporting that the turbinate was excised is probably not enough documentation for this code.CPT codes .../continued/

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