The robot is simply the device used to accomplish the surgery
Very rarely will any insurance pay for S2900 for the use of the robot. In my experience, unless you have it written into your provider contract, it never gets paid. And good luck with getting it written into your provider contract. Many offices that use this code really are just using it as a tracking tool.
The theory is that the robot is simply a device used in performing the surgery, so you do not bill for using the equipment. You should be billing and getting paid for the actual arthroplasty. You don't get additional payment for using the robot to accomplish the same surgery as before. It doesn't take MORE skill (just a DIFFERENT skill) and there is no additional cost to the physician (only the hospital buying the equipment).
I'm not in ortho, but I work for a very busy gyn oncology surgeon. He was doing laparoscopic total hysterectomies before the robot even existed. Once the robot came into the picture and he started doing surgeries with the robot, I will say INITIALLY the surgery took a little longer due to the learning curve. However, in a short period of time, the surgeries were the same time frame as prior. The idea of performing robotic surgery is not to get paid more money for the same procedure. It is to offer your patients the latest in medical advances, with potentially shorter recovery times and better outcomes.
