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70-year-old female presents with a complaint of right knee pain with weight bearing activities. She is also
developing pain at rest. She denies any recent injury. There is pain with stair climbing and start up pain.
An AP, Lateral and Sunrise views of the right knee are ordered and interpreted. They reveal calcification
within the vascular structures. There is decreased joint space through the medial compartment where she
has near bone-on-bone contact, flattening of the femoral condyles, no fractures noted. The diagnosis is
right knee pain secondary to underlying localized degenerative arthritis
What is CPT Code (s)73562, 715.36Rationale: Look in the CPT® Index for X-ray/Knee 73560-73564, 73580. Code 73562 reports three
views of one knee. The scenario is reported with one ICD-9-CM code. In the ICD-9-CM Index to
Diseases (Alphabetical Index) look for Arthritis/degenerative, there is a see also note to go to
Osteoarthrosis. Under Osteoarthrosis /localized, guides you to code 715.3 with the fifth digit being six,
715.36. If you look at chapter 13 in your ICD-9-CM codebook, you will see that the fifth digit 6, lower
leg, includes the knee joint. Localized osteoarthrosis is appropriate to report, because it is stated as
localized.You do not report the ICD-9-CM code for knee pain as this is a symptom of the degenerative
arthritis and included in the code.