Can anyone give feedback or help me find documentation on billing co-surgeon and assist on the same claim. In Appendix A of the AMA CPT book, modifier 62 states if a co-surgeon acts as an assistant in the performance of additional procedures, other than those reported with modifier 62, during the same surgical session, those services may be reported using separate procedure codes with modifier 80, as appropriate. If we are asked by another specialty to act as co-surgeon we of course bill with modifier 62 on primary procedures however since modifier 62 cannot be appended to instrumentation codes we bill with 80 on instrumentation. We are getting denials now from Horizon and Medicare on the instrumentation codes stating no qualifying base code is being used due to the the primary procedure being billed with 62 makes the TOS 2 and 80 makes TOS 8.
Example:
22551.62
22845.80
22552.62
20930.80

Thanks in advance.