Could someone explain the definition of this medical term as it appears on a bill. "FX Closed Fibula"

Question

My boyfriend had to go to the emergency room from an accident and was worked on in the ER but was not admitted into the hospital. When the bill came it was summarized and one of the items said "FX Closed Fibula" and we talked to the Dr's office and they said it is a diagnosis of his ankle and WE think it sounds like they are saying they did surgery to close his ankle where the Fibula bone was broke. Could someone with more medical terminology give us a better understanding? The doctor’s office is not being cooperative since he went to his regular Dr. and not back to the Dr. from the ER. The reason we are asking is that the charge is the highest on the bill and it just doesn’t sound right.

Answer 1

The term closed on the bill is explaining the type of fracture. There are many different ways that a bone can break, and closed means that the bone did not break through the skin when it was broken.

Answer 2

it probably stands for
"fracture - closed - fibula"

The fibula is a small strut-like bone that runs down the outside of your leg from just past the knee down to the ankle.

If it is broken, often no surgery is needed.

Sometimes the leg is put in a plaster cast or in a backslab or some other form of splint.

Then you tend to need crutches to get about.

Sometimes surgery is needed, and this may range from a simple push/pull into the right position and then putting a cast on all the way up to cutting the leg open and fixing the bone in place with metal or other tricky things.

If there wasn't any surgery done, then it is probably there to tell the doctor that your bf had broken his ankle and he is to be billed for plaster (backslab) and pain relief and crutches

Something like that, I expect

Answer 3

He had a fracture of the fibula (closed meaning that the bone did not protrude through the skin as happens with many breaks).

Answer 4

it is a "closed fracture of the fibula" which means that it was a fracture (not a complete break) that was closed (did not pierce the skin) of the fibula (the thin bone that sits behind your tibia, the shin bone).

p.s. u cant feel your fibula like u can the tibia.

Answer 5

FAX means fracture
Closed means that surgery was not required to set the bone
Fibula is the name of the bone that was broken

Answer 6

its non operative treatment of unstable ankle fractures.