Co-surgery, Team surgery, Assistant at surgery

Modifiers for co-surgery, team surgery and assistant at surgery

CPT^® has specific modifiers for co-surgery, team surgery and assistant at surgery. There are specific rules for each situation. CMS has a fact sheet that is helpful, and that reference is at the end of the article.

The Medicare Fee Schedule is published annually, and coders can download it from the CMS website. (Citation also at the end of the article.) The excel sheet has three relevant columns for this discussion: co-surgery, team surgery and assistant at surgery, with an indicator of 0, 1, 2 or 9 in the columns. Coders who subscribe to a coding program don’t have to use the excel file, because the coding program has this information in an easy to find format.

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