june 2009

INTRINSIC MUSCLES OF THE HAND

Coders need to be familiar with hand anatomy so that a repair or release of an intrinsic muscle is not incorrectly reported with tenotomy or tendon repair codes. Whenever a patient has a laceration on the palmar surface of the hand in the webspace near the thumb or on the outside of the hand near the small finger there are a number of muscles that you should be able to identify. The muscles in the webspace/thumb area are called the “Thenar group” and include the opponens pollicis, abductor pollicis brevis, flexor pollicis brevis and adductor pollicis.

The muscles in the area of the small finger known as the “Hypothenar group” and include the abductor digiti minimi and flexor digiti minimi brevis which are superficial muscles and the opponens digiti minimi that is a deep muscle.

Within the hand are the Lumbricals (superficial) along with the dorsal and palmar Interossei (deep).  There are a total of 7 interossei – 4 are dorsal and 3 are palmar. 

26591 – Repair, intrinsic muslces of hand, each muscle
26593 – Release, intrinsic muscles of hand, each muscle