Date: 11/11/2002
Q:
What do you recommend for surgical assist charges, in the form of a percentage (%) of the primary surgeon's fees?
A:
Attempting to coordinate your fee as a percent of the primary surgeon’s fee would be time
consuming and might be considered a form of fee setting.
We recommend assistant surgical fees be billed at 100% of your fee for the surgical procedure
and letting the payor discount it according to their policy. Medicare
pays assistant surgeons 16% of the global fee schedule rate for the surgical procedure.
You will modify your reported CPT code with the modifier -80 (use -81 or -82 when appropriate).
This policy does inflate your accounts receivable, but insures that a discounted fee is not further
discounted by the payor.
Russell Still (bio...)
Executive Vice President
MMA does not provide
legal, accounting, or tax advice. If you need assistance in these
areas, we recommend that you consult a qualified professional. In
addition, please note that a client relationship with MMA is not established
by the submission of a question to this forum or by the publishing of MMA's
response.
