Tactics help you recoup deserved pay for 24357-24359.
Tennis elbow claims faults can wreak havoc on your reimbursement for these services.  But you can clean up your method if you can spot in the note how the surgeon reached the elbow tendon and whether the tendon was released or repaired.  By doing so, you stand to gain your full earned pay for codes 24357, 24358, and 24359, which is $437.27, $514.74, and $647.59, respectively.
Review Structures Treated
When you are confident in your elbow anatomy knowledge, you’ll have a better chance of understanding where the operative note is directing you.   The codes are simple and can easily be applied if you are reading correctly. “Coding these procedures became much easier when CPT condensed the codes from the previous five down to the current three,” confirms Heidi Stout, BA, CPC, COSC, PCS, CCS-P, Coder on Call, Inc., Milltown, New Jersey and orthopedic coding division director, The Coding Network, LLC, Beverly Hills, CA.  The bones, –humerus above and the radius and ulna below– articulate in a manner to allow 180 degrees of movement that helps you use the upper limb for various functions.

The numerous muscles that originate and insert around the joint allow movement; particularly important is the bundle of extensors including the muscle extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) that originates at the lateral epicondyle which is the lateral prominence of the humerus at the elbow joint.  Repeated back movements of the wrist joint, as seen when playing tennis, can cause small micro tears in the tendon of origin and result in inflammation known as lateral epicondylitis or ‘tennis elbow.’ The term is highly deceptive, though; the condition affects non-athletes as well, and is not solely confined to tennis players. As the pathology progresses, the damaged tendon(s) may rupture and...