Surgical Dressing TPE

If you read the entire surgical dressing LCD and don't get dizzy you deserve an award. What is easily noted is that unless the wound is minimally full thickness and has recently been debrided and one can also document medical necessity for surgical dresings, the claim(s) will be denied. Both post verrucae (a partial thickness epidermal invasion) and a matrixectomy (an ablation and not full thickness) therefore do not qualify for surgical dressings. This is likely the primary rationale why the surgical dressings were not approved.

It is also possible there was a lack of recent debridement of either of the wound.

Thus medical necessity in accordance with the LCD was not merit.

Last and perhaps most important, if the patient were undergoing either a verrucous resection or nail ablation, one would assume they were healthy and would require anything but standard wound care products (gauze, bandaids and perhaps some topical creams) and not require high tech solutions, such as those products available in the Surgical Dresings LCD. If the use of those products were anticipated, perhaps these patients were not suitable candidates for these procedures, and they should have had their vascular status ascertained.