In a bypass around a damaged aorta supplying the femoral-popliteal artery using a harvested saphenous vein graft, what CPT code is appropriate?

In a bypass around a damaged aorta supplying the femoral-popliteal artery using a harvested saphenous vein graft, what CPT code is appropriate?

• A. 35524
• B. 35656
• C. 35556
• D. 35558

Answer: (C)

In vascular CPT coding, you pick the code by where the bypass starts and what kind of graft is used. This operation creates a bypass from the aorta to the femoral artery region and uses the patient’s own saphenous vein as the graft, an autogenous conduit. That combination—an aorto-femoral bypass with autogenous vein graft—maps to the CPT code for an aorto-femoral bypass with autogenous conduit. So the most accurate code is 35556. If the graft were prosthetic, a different code would apply for aorto-femoral bypass with prosthetic material, and if the bypass targeted the femoropopliteal region without involving the aorta, a different set of codes would be used. But for an aorto-femoral bypass using the patient's own vein, 35556 is the correct choice.

In vascular CPT coding, you pick the code by where the bypass starts and what kind of graft is used. This operation creates a bypass from the aorta to the femoral artery region and uses the patient’s own saphenous vein as the graft, an autogenous conduit. That combination—an aorto-femoral bypass with autogenous vein graft—maps to the CPT code for an aorto-femoral bypass with autogenous conduit. So the most accurate code is 35556.

If the graft were prosthetic, a different code would apply for aorto-femoral bypass with prosthetic material, and if the bypass targeted the femoropopliteal region without involving the aorta, a different set of codes would be used. But for an aorto-femoral bypass using the patient's own vein, 35556 is the correct choice.