2025 CPT code 17314
(Active) Effective Date: N/A Revision Date: N/A Surgery - Mohs Micrographic Surgery Integumentary System Feed
Additional Mohs micrographic surgery stage; up to 5 tissue blocks.
Modifiers may be necessary to indicate separately reported services (e.g., 59 for distinct procedural service), depending on the circumstances.
Mohs micrographic surgery is medically necessary for the treatment of complex or ill-defined skin cancers, especially those with a high risk of recurrence, such as large or recurrent lesions or those located in cosmetically sensitive areas.It's crucial for achieving clear surgical margins.
The clinical responsibility involves the surgeon performing a multi-staged surgical procedure.This includes excising layers of tissue, mapping and processing the specimens for microscopic examination, and interpreting the results to guide further excision until clear margins are achieved. Wound closure (sutures or grafts) is also the surgeon's responsibility.
In simple words: This code is for extra steps in a special type of skin cancer surgery called Mohs surgery.If the doctor needs to do more than one surgical step to remove all the cancer, they'll use this code for each extra step, up to five extra steps.
This CPT code, 17314, represents each additional stage performed in a Mohs micrographic surgery procedure, after the initial stage (17313), for the removal of skin cancer from the trunk, arms, or legs.The procedure includes the removal of gross tumor, surgical excision of tissue specimens, mapping, color-coding of specimens, microscopic examination by the surgeon, and histopathologic preparation with routine stains (e.g., hematoxylin and eosin, toluidine blue). This code is reported for up to five tissue blocks per additional stage.It must be reported in conjunction with 17313 for the first stage.
Example 1: A patient presents with a large, complex basal cell carcinoma on their leg. The Mohs surgeon performs the initial stage (17313), followed by two additional stages (2 x 17314) to achieve clear margins. The lesion is then closed primarily., A patient with a recurrent squamous cell carcinoma on their trunk undergoes a three-stage Mohs procedure (17313 + 2 x 17314).The final pathology shows clear margins, and a skin graft is necessary for closure., A patient presents with a suspicious lesion on their arm, which is biopsied.The biopsy confirms malignancy.A Mohs procedure is performed, consisting of an initial stage (17313) and four additional stages (4 x 17314) to remove a deeply invasive melanoma. A skin flap is used for reconstruction.
Detailed operative notes describing each stage of the Mohs procedure, including the number of tissue blocks examined, location and size of the excised tissue, microscopic examination findings, and the method of closure.Pathology reports for each stage must show clear margins.
** The number of additional stages (and therefore the number of 17314 codes reported) should accurately reflect the number of stages performed in the surgical procedure.The maximum number of additional stages that can be reported with 17313 is 4 (for a total of 5 tissue blocks across all stages).