Wiki billing 2 sugical assists on a surgery..??

[1073358]

I am doing some research for a cardio surgeon. What we would like to know is if he is the primary surgeon, and he has another surgeon as an assist and then he has the PA also assisting (he would be doing a vein harvesting), can we bill the PA's part in it as well as the assistant surgeon? Can you tell me where I can find documentation on this? Thanks

 

[patricia iverson]

You can bill two assistant surgeons in open heart surgery. A PA as an assistant in surgery requires his service to be billed with modifiers 80 & AS to indicate that the assist was performed by a P.A. You should be able to get a list of surgeries that allow 2 assistant surgeons from the Society of Thoracis Surgeons as I have seen this listed in newsletters from them.