Question

what is the connection between anatomy and physiology and billing and coding? provide examples

Answer 1

Ans) The relationship between anatomy and physiology are that they will always correlate with each other.

- Anatomy being the study of the actual physical organs and their structure as well as their relationship to each other. While physiology studies how those organs work to function the whole body as organ systems.

- In more prominent aspect,anatomy elucidates the structure while physiology explains the function of various parts of a human body.

Example:

- The surgeon states he made use of a pediatric endoscope by passing it through the oropharynx, past the gastroesophageal junction, and into the stomach proper to the duodenum. He also states a biopsy was taken before retraction.

If a medical coder where to look up each of the individual terms stated above in the CPT book they would be lead to the following codes:

42800 - Biopsy; Oropharynx

43600 - Biopsy of stomach; by capsual, tube, peroral (one or more specimens)

44010 - Duodenotomy; for exploration, biopsy(s), or foreign body removal

**No codes found for the term gastroesophageal junction**

Had the same coder known their human anatomy and physiology they would know that the oropharynx (mouth and pahrynx), the gastroesophageal junction (where the esophagus meets the stomach), the stomach proper (a section of the stomach), and the duodenum (the sphincter where the stomach and small intestine join); is one long passageway that is commonly traveled by a video camera for exploration purposes. They would also know that this passageway, when traveled in this fashion, is abbreviated E.G.D. (esophagogastroduodenoscopy).

By look up the single term esophagogastroduodenoscopy the coder would then be led to the one correct code

43239 - Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy including esophagus, stomach, and either the duodenum and/or jejunum as appropriate; with biopsy, single or multiple.