Not all patients who present to the office with colon polyps will be diagnosed with colon cancer. This second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the US usually begins as small, benign adenomatous lump, and becomes cancerous overtime.

Colon cancer, or colorectal cancer as it’s regularly known, is a cancer which starts in the large bowel portion of the gastrointestinal (GI) system. Because it comes in many forms and symptoms, coding the definitive diagnosis might be risky. Guard your practice’s deserved dollars with these 3 tips.

1. Don’t Go Looking For ‘Benign’, ‘Malignant’

Whether or not you’re dealing with a full-blown colorectal cancer, you should be looking at the different terms used to describe benign or malignant colonic polyps. Some of these include:

• Adenomas including tubular adenomas and tubulovillous adenomas
• Hyperplastic polyps
• Inflammatory polyps
• Familial adenomatous polyposis, a rare hereditary disorder that causes hundreds of polyps in the lining of the colon beginning in the teenage years. If this is left untreated, the patient becomes high risk to develop colon cancer.
• Hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer, a hereditary disorder that causes an increased risk of developing colon cancer.

But first, you have to accomplish the task of determining — without a doubt — if a polyp is benign or malignant. If you think you would find the clues in the pathology report (PR), think again. Usually, the PR will not use the term “benign” or “malignant.” However, it will use a description that points to the usual behavior of the polyp. It’s up to you to interpret those descriptions into benign or malignant.

Experts advise that you always wait for the pathology report to come back before deciding on a particular ICD-9. Even the gastroenterologists, themselves, usually defer to the pathology report before making a recommendation.

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