Wiki Facial Nerve Monitoring

[karen1123]

When facial nerve monitoring is performed with a technician during left lateral parotidectomy and excision of left branchial cleft anomaly, should the monitoring be reported by the surgeon for billing purposes?

 

[Candice_Fenildo]

Hi Karen, No it should not. In 2013 it has been changed to describe that in order to bill the nerve monitoring, It has to be the ONLY service that the physician is providing. See the article on the ENT academies website. I have attached it for you. I don't think the ENT's are interpreting the results while they are focusing on the surgery. I asked my ENT's and they said they do not. All that they do is confirm with the tech that the machine is calibrated successfully and checks with the tech the entire time to assure that the nerves are not being compromised.

the service must be performed by a monitoring professional who is solely dedicated to performing the intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring and is available to intervene at all times during the service as necessary. The monitoring professional may not provide any other clinical activities during the same period of time. In the event the monitoring is performed by the surgeon or anesthesiologist, the professional services are included in the primary service code(s) and should not be reported separately.


http://aaobulletin-365.ascendeventm...or-intraoperative-neurophysiology-monitoring/