Medical Insurance 7th Edition by Amy Blochowiak, Joanne Valerius, Nenna Bayes, Cynthia Newby

Exercise 23

1. In CPT, what is the meaning of the symbol in front of code 93503?
2. Based on Appendix A of CPT, what modifiers would you assign in each of the following cases? Why?
CASE A.
Patient has recurrent cancer; surgeon performed a colectomy, which took forty-five minutes longer than the normal procedure due to dense adhesions from the patient's previous surgery.
CASE B.
Surgeon operating on an ingrown toenail administers a regional nerve block.
CASE C.
Patient was scheduled for a total diagnostic colonoscopy, but the patient went into respiratory distress during procedure; surgeon stopped the procedure.
CASE D.
Puncture aspiration of a cyst in the left breast and a cyst in the right breast.
CASE E.
A neurological surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon worked as cosurgeons.