Perioperative technical fees
If an anesthesiologist performs a presurgical or postsurgical block for pain control, that is performed in holding areas and not in the OR itself, can we bill a separate facility (tech) fee for that? Would this be bundled in with OR services? There is some debate about this in my facility.
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It would be very difficult to explain the additional facility fee when the purpose of the block was directly related to the surgical procedure and performed in the "overall" surgical area. Consider including this in the Anesthesia facility charge where the costs/resources are reported by most facilities for the anesthesia portion of the procedure. You could set up a CDM item for pre/post pain control block and add a charge that covers the time involved in the procedure. Put under revenue code 0370 (for example) and then it rolls up with the other anesthesia charges.
And this Q&A became part of this week's Revenue Integrity Insider! This question comes up often so thank you both. https://nahri.org/articles/qa-billing-pre-or-postsurgical-pain-control-blocks