Introduction: Class III Obesity (formally known as morbid obesity) affects close to twenty percent of the American population, and significantly effects complex spinal surgery in its complexity divarication, time allotments, anesthesia, and healing/post-operative management. These issues are cumulative in their scope of practice and require systems of strategies and methods of delivery in order to provide successful and lasting outcomes. We outline our post-operative methodology (checklist format), for submission and consignment of surety affirmation..
Methods: As previously reported, this health-system based surgical practice details a larger populace of complicated surgical patients, with many (>25%) exceeding the BMI designation of 40 kg/m. The methodology utilized to capture, code and bill this population for surgical services administered is the appended Modifier 22 (Procedural Code 5984). The added use descriptive operative language is also necessary, mentioning time allotments, microscopic usage, and elongated instrumentation.
Results: The affirmative yield for this populace is highly dependent on confluent data submitted as additional modifiers are closely scrutinized. Submissions for these codes will allow for requisite work completed in the caring for these complex patients through their continuum.
Conclusion : Aside from the many challenging aspects of care associated with these patients, the methodology of up-coding for appropriate care rendered allows for patient access to surgeons otherwise reluctant to manage these patients.
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