Summary & Overview
CPT 15104: Split-Thickness Autograft for Trunk, Arms, Legs
Headline: CPT 15104: Split-Thickness Autograft for Trunk, Arms, and Legs
Lead: CPT 15104 denotes a split-thickness autograft covering the first 100 square centimeters (or 1% of body area for infants and children) on the trunk, arms, or legs. The code is an important surgical billing descriptor for inpatient skin graft procedures used in wound and burn management.
What this code represents and national relevance
CPT 15104 captures a common reconstructive and wound-coverage technique that uses the patient’s own partial-thickness skin to close defects. Nationally, accurate reporting of this code matters for clinical documentation, resource planning in inpatient surgical services, and consistent communication between surgical teams and payers.
Key payers covered This publication covers major commercial and public payers: Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, BUCA, and Medicare.
What readers will learn Readers will find a concise overview of the clinical context for split-thickness autografts, coding specifics for the initial graft area, typical inpatient site-of-service considerations, commonly applied modifiers, and related procedural codes used in graft and wound preparation workflows. The piece highlights coding adjacency with services such as recipient site preparation and additional graft sizing codes, and notes typical presenting diagnoses associated with grafting (burns, pressure ulcers, open wounds). Benchmarks, coding practice considerations, and policy notes relevant to hospital billing and payer adjudication are summarized for national audiences.
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CPT Code Overview
CPT 15104 describes a split-thickness autograft performed on the trunk, arms, or legs and reports the first 100 square centimeters or less, or 1% of body area for infants and children. This is a surgical procedure typically used to cover wounds, burns, or areas requiring skin replacement using the patient’s own tissue.
Service type: Surgery
Typical site of service: Inpatient Hospital (POS 21)
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Clinical & Coding Specifications
Clinical Context
A typical patient is an adult admitted to the inpatient hospital for treatment of full- or partial-thickness skin loss from burns or traumatic/pressure wounds. The patient has wound bed preparation completed (debridement and hemostasis) and requires a split-thickness autograft from a donor site on the trunk, arm, or leg. The operative workflow includes preoperative assessment, harvesting a split-thickness skin graft (first 100 sq cm or less) from an appropriate donor site, placement and fixation of the graft on the recipient site, and postoperative dressing and inpatient monitoring for graft take, infection, and donor-site healing. The service is performed in the operating room with involvement of a surgery or plastic surgery physician and, when necessary, surgical critical care for medically complex patients.
Coding Specifications
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Modifier
51(Multiple Procedures): Use when multiple distinct surgical procedures are performed on the same day by the same provider and the payer requires identification of secondary procedures for appropriate payment adjustments. -
Modifier
59(Distinct Procedural Service): Use when the split-thickness autograft represents a procedure not normally reported together with another procedure, or when a separate session, site, or distinct procedure service is documented and meets payer criteria for distinctness.
Provider Taxonomies
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