# Interrupted Anesthesia - Has anyone ever come across



## cmacpc (Jul 12, 2010)

Has anyone ever come across having to bill interrupted time.  i have had two cases last week.  One was a D&C  the other was an I&D od the foot, in both cases the surgeon was called on an emergent case.  The patients were induced transferred to recovery then brought back to the OR 15 min later for the procedure.  On the I&D the interrupted time is 0650 to 0810 surgeon not available, then patient went back to OR 0843 anesthesia end time 0916.  Do you just bill for the 2nd case?  any help would be appreciated

TIA


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## gost (Jul 12, 2010)

You can bill for both blocks of time as long as the doc was in attendance during those times.  You can add the times for both blocks together, in this case 80 min + 33 min = 113 minutes, or by subtracting the time of the interruption from the total time, 146 min - 33 min = 113 minutes.  Reporting the time depends on the payer and your billing software.  Some want only one start and stop time so you would report the start time for the first block of time and the end time of the second block but report only 113 minutes.  Some accept multiple start and stop times which makes it much easier.  If using only one start and stop time, you may have to change your concurrency modifiers if the anesthesiologist was directing any other cases during the break.


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