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Practice Management Alert

Reader Question:

Skip 99360 When Billing to Medicare

Published on Fri Aug 12, 2011

Question: My doctors stand by for surgeons in some high-risk procedures/ cases. They want to code for their time, and I have found code 99360 for this. Do they need to dictate something in order for me to charge for this?Florida SubscriberAnswer: CMS and many other payers don't pay for 99360 (Physician standby service, requiring prolonged physician attendance, each 30 minutes [e.g., operative standby, standby for frozen section, for cesarean/high risk delivery, for monitoring EEG]), so the physician may not be able to charge for standby time. Some payers might pay on 99360, however. If a third party payer does reimburse for 99360, then be sure the physician has documented the standby service with something such as: I was requested by [DOCTOR'S NAME] to be on standby for the pacemaker implant performed on [PATIENT'S NAME] on [DATE]. I arrived at the operating room at [ARRIVAL TIME] and departed at [DEPARTURE [...]
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