In the last few years the concept of billing for extenders seems to have spread like a chain reaction to surgeons as well, who began billing for assistants during operations like joint replacements. Medicare again tried to curtail the practice, having long said that if surgeons were going to bill in their own names, they had to be present for the “key parts” of an operation. If a physician assistant was helping with surgery, his or her services could be billed at about 15 percent of the surgeon’s rate. But providers parsed each such restriction for loopholes to use to their advantage, and they
...more
