i) Time, for the purposes of fee codes 00193, 00198, 07920, T70019 and T70020 is calculated at the earliest time of medical practitioner/patient contact in the operating suite.

ii) Where a medical practitioner renders surgical assistance at two operations under the same anesthetic but for which repositioning or redraping of the patient or more than one separately draped surgical operating field is medically/surgically required, separate assistants’ fees maybe claimed for each operation, except for bilateral procedures, procedures within the same body cavity, or procedures on the same limb.

iii) If, in the interest of the patient, the referring medical practitioner is requested by the patient or the surgeon to attend but does not assist at the procedure, attendance at surgery may be claimed as a subsequent hospital visit.

iv) The specialist’s assistant listings apply only to surgical procedures having unusual technical difficulties identified and documented by the primary surgeon in a detailed note record as necessitating the services of a certified surgical assistant. The general assistant listings are applicable to all other situations where surgical assistance is necessary. 

v) Where surgery is abandoned, independent consideration will be given to the fee applicable to the assistant, to a maximum of 50 percent of the listed assistant fee for the intended procedure.

vi) Surgical fee modifiers are excluded from the calculation for total operative fee(s) for which surgical assist fees are based.