Pediatric Coding: Friction Burns Are Still Regarded As 'burns'

By Author: erinarticle
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Recently, a three-year-old child was brought in with multiple friction burns from a treadmill. She had partial thickness friction burns to one hand, both ankles and one foot. She had a full thickness friction burn to down to the fascia on two fingers. Our provider cleaned all burns with surclens and debrided the loose skin, applied silvadene, and then applied gauze and dressings to all burn areas. What codes should we report here?


Well, you will need to calculate the total body surface area (TBSA affected by the burns (based on the documentation) to report properly. The two possibilities for the partial thickness burns are 16020 or 16025.


Often full-thickness burns call for skin grafting. If that is the case with the patient, the pediatrician will refer the patient to a surgeon for definitive treatment. In the meantime, he might complete temporary debridement and dressing, however 16020 and 16025 include that care. If the burns were not serious enough to require grafting, however, include the burns to the fingers in your calculations with 16020 or 16025.


Follow up: ...
... When the child returns for a check-up, you will turn to the same group of codes. Remember that the specific codes might change because of TBSA, depending on how much healing has taken place. These codes have a 0-day global period associated with them, allowing for repeat billing of the services for follow-up visits.


For more on this and for other specialty specific articles to assist your pediatric coding, sign up for a good medical coding resource like Coding Institute.