Get Top Reimbursements for Skin Graft Procedures

In 2006 several changes were made to the CPT regarding skin graft procedures and this included the retiring of several codes and the addition of 37 new skin graft codes to make identifying the procedures more exact for medical billing claims. The skin graft section was also renamed to Skin Replacement Surgery and Skin Substitutes.

There are new codes for autografts, sections 15100 through 15261, allografts, sections 15170 through 15176 and xenografts, sections 15400 through 15431. These codes seem to have been created in order to represent some new procedures and techniques. Many of these new codes are also specific to a particular technology or product make sure that your medical billing claims reflect these codes or you may be missing a substantial amount of reimbursements for procedures done.

It seems that there has been a lot of struggle for payment to be received for some of the expensive and specialized products. This is especially true if a general skin graft code was used, observed John Bishop who is President of Bishop & Associates in Tampa FL. The products that are usually harder to receive payment for are Integra, Appligraft, Biobrane and Dermagraft.

Bishop states that paying attention to the amount and the composition of the synthetic product you are using is key. Many of the new codes cover the initial 100 cm and then have additional codes for more product used. Make sure that your staff is using the most updated codings to reflect services rendered and you should be able to receive better reimbursements instead of denials and delays for your skin graft claims.

View all Articles by: Melissa C. - OMG, LLC. CEO