Modifier:
Modifier 62 Eases Your Multi-Provider Coding Dilemma
Published on Fri Jan 28, 2011
Your CPT should jive on both surgeons' op notes, or else bid $4k goodbye.When you come face-to-face with multi-provider situation, the last thing you would want is to mess up your coding by assigning the wrong modifier(s). Modifiers can be a friend or a foe, depending on how you use them -- or when you use them.Scenario: A 70-year-old female patient who presents with COPD and coronary artery disease, status post myocardial infarction (CAD s/p MI) has a 28 mm of inner diameter thoracic aortic aneurysm. Imaging studies indicate the aneurysm to be descending. The cardiologist, together with a thoracic surgeon, decides to perform an open operative repair with graft replacement of the diseased segment.The main key in a multi-provider scenario is to treat each physician's work as a separate activity. However, deciding when to report a case as co-surgery, assistant surgery -- or something else -- has more to it than meets [...]
