Correct Medical Billing for Foreign-Body Removal

Foreign body removal is another scenario that winds up with a lot of rejections or reduced reimbursements.

One of the biggest reasons is that when the coding is being done on the claim. The part of the body affected isn’t addressed in the medical billing claim. If a foreign body was removed from a patient’s eye, then the code for simple foreign body removal should not be used. The specific coding for removal of conjunctival foreign bodies which is code 65205 (Removal of foreign body, external eye; conjunctival superficial) or 65210 (conjunctival embedded [includes concretions], subconjunctival, or scleral nonperforating).

Notice that these codes do not refer to any particular instrument used to remove the object from an eye and concentrate on the part of the patient’s body the services were rendered upon. Generally in the case of FBR, the physician can use almost any means necessary to remove the FB such as a cotton swab, needle, or other instrument and it will not affect the coding that is chosen for the medical billing.

Another issue to insure that you are coding accurately is to ascertain that there were no other procedures performed and nothing invasive. In the case a gunshot wound for example, when the wound was explored to estimate how much damage was done to the surrounding tissue, the physician would need to make note of that as you could code it separately from the FBR of the bullet. visit for the evaluation and management of a patient, which requires these three key components: an expanded problem-focused history, an expanded problem-focused examination, and medical decision-making of low complexity), to describe the physician’s work.

If the patient had a low level complaint such as a splinter or glass removed that didn’t require stitches or anything special, use a low level ED code for your medical billing claims on those types of services.

View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P