Wiki Billing Intraoperative X-rays on Surgeries?

[abazcoder]

My manager claims that we should be billing for the intraoperative X-rays taken during our Orthopedic surgeries.
Most of the time our Doctors will word it in the report as, "We confirmed alignment with 3 views of the foot"....etc, etc.
And that I'm supposed to be including such X-ray views in what we're billing out.
I was never trained to include the X-rays when coding out the surgeries for our Doctors before.
I would think this is included in the global surgical package.
Are we allowed to bill X-rays for intraoperative surgeries?

 

[thomas7331]

It will depend on the specific procedure and the x-ray that was done - you'll need to check your bundling edits for the x-ray code against the surgical procedure code to know whether or not that x-ray is considered included. But in many cases, you can bill the x-ray in addition to the surgical procedure - in general, diagnostic imaging is not a part of a global surgical package unless it is normally a required and integral part of the procedure.

I'd just note, though, that if you're coding the physician's claim, the surgeon will need to document a report of their interpretation of the imaging - it wouldn't be sufficient just to say 'we confirmed alignment'. Also, if the x-rays are being sent to a radiologist for interpretation, then the surgeon really shouldn't be billing for an interpretation as that would be a duplication of the service and one would likely be denied.

 

[abazcoder]

It will depend on the specific procedure and the x-ray that was done - you'll need to check your bundling edits for the x-ray code against the surgical procedure code to know whether or not that x-ray is considered included. But in many cases, you can bill the x-ray in addition to the surgical procedure - in general, diagnostic imaging is not a part of a global surgical package unless it is normally a required and integral part of the procedure.

I'd just note, though, that if you're coding the physician's claim, the surgeon will need to document a report of their interpretation of the imaging - it wouldn't be sufficient just to say 'we confirmed alignment'. Also, if the x-rays are being sent to a radiologist for interpretation, then the surgeon really shouldn't be billing for an interpretation as that would be a duplication of the service and one would likely be denied.

Thank you for your response.
As far as I know, our surgeons capture the images on Fluro/X-rays during the surgery and they are "stored" digitally so we do have them on file as proof the X-rays were taken.
But that's the extent of it, there is no separate report being written up by our Docs specifically for the X-ray portion.
We've been billing out for X-rays with no issues so far, I was just a little nervous about doing this because I was never taught to bill out for the X-rays in the past and wasn't sure if we were billing inappropriately.
Thank you!