Incision and drainage. Incision and drainage and clinical lancing are minor surgical procedures to release pus or pressure built up under the skin, such as from an abscess, boil, or infected paranasal sinus. It is performed by treating the area with an antiseptic, such as iodine-based solution, and then making a small incision to puncture the skin using a sterile instrument such as a sharp needle, a pointed scalpel or a lancet.
Related abbreviations
What are the risks of an I and D? A scar may form on your skin as it heals. Your incision may heal slowly, feel painful, or get infected. Your abscess may come back, even after treatment. You may need another I and D if the abscess comes back. The bacteria may spread to your heart or other organs. This can be life-threatening. Care Agreement
Procedure codes 10060 and 10061 represent incision and drainage of an abscess involving the skin, subcutaneous and/or accessory structures.
For incision and drainage of a complex wound infection, use CPT 10180. You can remove the sutures/ staples from the wound or make an additional incision to work through. The wound is drained and any necrotic tissue is excised. The wound can be packed open for continuous drainage or closed with a latex drain.
ICD-9 code 682.9 for Cellulitis and abscess of unspecified sites is a medical classification as listed by WHO under the range -INFECTIONS OF SKIN AND SUBCUTANEOUS TISSUE (680-686).
ICD-9-CM is the official system of assigning codes to diagnoses and procedures associated with hospital utilization in the United States. The ICD-9 was used to code and classify mortality data from death certificates until 1999, when use of ICD-10 for mortality coding started.
Incision and drainage and clinical lancing are minor surgical procedures to release pus or pressure built up under the skin, such as from an abscess, boil, or infected paranasal sinus.
I&D / Excision Mass 1 is an I&D - CPT 10061.
Currently, the U.S. is the only industrialized nation still utilizing ICD-9-CM codes for morbidity data, though we have already transitioned to ICD-10 for mortality.
The current ICD used in the United States, the ICD-9, is based on a version that was first discussed in 1975. The United States adapted the ICD-9 as the ICD-9-Clinical Modification or ICD-9-CM. The ICD-9-CM contains more than 15,000 codes for diseases and disorders. The ICD-9-CM is used by government agencies.
ICD-9 uses mostly numeric codes with only occasional E and V alphanumeric codes. Plus, only three-, four- and five-digit codes are valid. ICD-10 uses entirely alphanumeric codes and has valid codes of up to seven digits.
ICD-10-PCS will be the official system of assigning codes to procedures associated with hospital utilization in the United States. ICD-10-PCS codes will support data collection, payment and electronic health records. ICD-10-PCS is a medical classification coding system for procedural codes.
International Classification of Diseases,Ninth Revision (ICD-9) Related Pages. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is designed to promote international comparability in the collection, processing, classification, and presentation of mortality statistics.
ICD-9 defines conventions as that group of punctuation, abbreviations, typefaces, symbols, and instructional notes enabling the coder to correctly use ICD-9-CM. Bold type is used for codes and titles in the tabular and main terms in the index.
In a concise statement, ICD-9 is the code used to describe the condition or disease being treated, also known as the diagnosis. CPT is the code used to describe the treatment and diagnostic services provided for that diagnosis.
The ICD-10-CM (International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification) is a system used by physicians and other healthcare providers to classify and code all diagnoses, symptoms and procedures recorded in conjunction with hospital care in the United States.
13,000 codesThe current ICD-9-CM system consists of ∼13,000 codes and is running out of numbers.
CMS will continue to maintain the ICD-9 code website with the posted files. These are the codes providers (physicians, hospitals, etc.) and suppliers must use when submitting claims to Medicare for payment. These codes form the basis of those used for Section 111 reporting, with some exceptions.
Current Dental Terminology (CDT) defines “incision and drainage” as “The procedure of incising a fluctuant muco-sal lesion to allow for the release of fluid from the lesion.”1 The purpose of this paper is to clarify which codes should be used when incision and drainage is performed in con-junction with extraction(s).
As a general rule, extractions are not covered by medi-cal plans or Medicare. There are ICD-9-CM diagnostic codes that indicate a specific reason for extractions. In the absence of coverage for extractions there will often be cov-erage for incision and drainage. The following ICD-9-CM codes may be used for incision and drainage in conjunction with extractions.
CPT 10140 includes an incision and drainage of hematoma, seroma, or another “fluid collection” in the skin and subcutaneous tissues.
CPT codes 10060 and 10061 include an incision and drainage of an area of infection other than postoperative infections which we will discuss later. If we look at the examples in parentheses in the descriptions for these codes in the CPT manual, we can see that an incision and drainage of a carbuncle, hidradenitis, a cyst, a furuncle, paronychia, and cutaneous and subcutaneous abscesses can be reported with these codes. So what makes 10060 and 10061 different from each other? CPT 10060 includes a “simple” or “single” incision and drainage and 10061 includes a “complicated” incision and drainage or “multiple” incision and drainages.
An incision and drainage procedure as the name implies involves making an incision into the body and draining fluid from the body. This fluid drained can be an area of infection such as an abscess or it may be an area of hematoma or seroma.
Because the abscess in our example is in the muscle and did not require the surgeon to incise into the joint itself, CPT 24000 is also not the correct code. So we have now checked every option underneath the location of “elbow” for incision and drainage procedures in the CPT index.
An additional clue that the incision and drainage is more complicated than average can include placing a drain into the abscess cavity to allow the infection to continue to drain after the surgery is finished (this is not typical unless there’s an extensive infection present). Finally, the incision and drainage of multiple abscesses would always be ...
Not all incision and drainage procedure s should be coded with these codes from the integumentary section though. There are incision and drainage codes throughout the surgery section of the CPT manual that are designed to represent deeper incision and drainage procedures for various locations throughout the body.
The AMA stated that the CPT manual itself does not provide definitions for simple and complicated and that the code chosen is based on the physician’s judgment about the degree of difficulty involved in the incision and drainage procedure.