# Time Units



## j.berkshire (Jan 11, 2011)

Does anyone use another unit of measure for the total anesthesia time instead of minutes?  I'm seeing different numbers  (and not the time in minutes) in the units field on a CMS 1500 claim form.  Thoughts?

Thanks


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## dwaldman (Jan 11, 2011)

Actual anesthesia time in minutes is reported on the claim. For anesthesia services furnished on or after January 1, 1994, the A/B MAC computes time units by dividing reported anesthesia time by 15 minutes. Round the time unit to one decimal place. The A/B MAC does not recognize time units for CPT codes 01995 or 01996.

https://www.cms.gov/manuals/downloads/clm104c12.pdf
Page 120

For Medicare, it is minutes in box 24g units field. other carriers might require different arrangements, but I personally have not encounter any problems billing by minutes.


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## gost (Jan 12, 2011)

Our Medicaid carriers want time UNITS, not minutes.  I've also had a few smaller TPAs that want total units (time + base).  I remeber one that even wanted base uinits only in the units field and the start and stop times reported on the claim so they could calculate the time units.  That was probably 10 years ago though.  They have probably changed since then.


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