I think I have a two fold question. I was under the impression true co-surgery was only performed when two surgeons of different specialty's perform components of the same surgical code. Our providers will occasionally assist each other on more difficult cases, all our providers are of the same specialty. Recently, we had a case were our providers had to close/cover a very larger abdominal/groin sarcoma defect. One of our providers performed a large abdominal skin flap to cover a portion of the defect and then another of our providers performed an ATL flap to cover the remainder of the defect in the same encounter. I was under the impression this isn't true co-surgery because 1. they are not different specialties and 2. they were not performing components of the same procedure. However, all the information I am finding in trying to determine what/how we can bill for this seems to imply this is an example of co-surgery. It was also suggested that we could only bill one provider as the primary for both procedures and the other would be an assist, but that wouldn't be accurate to who performed the bulk of the work for each code. There was no overlapping piece of the procedures between the two providers. Part of the abdomen was covered and closed with a skin flap and the other with an anterolateral thigh flap (ALT), one didn't overlap the other. It seems weird to me that two providers can't bill separately at the same encounter for different procedures just because they are the same specialty. I know I am misunderstanding something. Could someone assist with breaking this down and help me in determining how this would be billed?
Appreciate any all assistance.
Thank you.
Appreciate any all assistance.
Thank you.