Incident To Physician’s Professional Services

60.1 - Incident To Physician’s Professional Services (Rev. 1, 10-01-03) B3-2050.1 Incident to a physician’s professional services means that the services or supplies are furnished as an integral, although incidental, part of the physician’s personal professional services in the course of diagnosis or treatment of an injury or illness. A - Commonly Furnished in Physicians’ Offices Services and supplies commonly furnished in physicians’ offices are covered under the incident to provision. Where supplies are clearly of a type a physician is not expected to have on hand in his/her office or where services are of a type not considered medically appropriate to provide in the office setting, they would not be covered under the incident to provision. Supplies usually furnished by the physician in the course of performing his/her services, e.g., gauze, ointments, bandages, and oxygen, are also covered. Charges for such services and supplies must be included in the physicians’ bills. (See §50 regarding coverage of drugs and biologicals under this provision.) To be covered, supplies, including drugs and biologicals, must represent an expense to the physician or legal entity billing fir he services or supplies. For example, where a patient purchases a drug and the physician administers it, the cost of the drug is not covered. However, the administration of the drug, regardless of the source, is a service that represents an expense to the physician. Therefore, administration of the drug is payable if the drug would have been covered if the physician purchased it. B - Direct Personal Supervision Coverage of services and supplies incident to the professional services of a physician in private practice is limited to situations in which there is direct physician supervision of auxiliary personnel. Auxiliary personnel means any individual who is acting under the supervision of a physician, regardless of whether the individual is an employee, leased employee, or independent contractor of the physician, or of the legal entity that employs or contracts with the physician. Likewise, the supervising physician may be an employee, leased employee or independent contractor of the legal entity billing and receiving payment for the services or supplies. However, the physician personally furnishing the services or supplies or supervising the auxiliary personnel furnishing the services or supplies must have a relationship with the legal entity billing and receiving payment for the services or supplies that satisfies the requirements for valid reassignment. As with the physician’s personal professional services, the patient’s financial liability for the incident to services or supplies is to the physician or other legal entity billing and receiving payment for the services or supplies. Therefore, the incident to services or supplies must represent an expense incurred by the physician or legal entity billing for the services or supplies. Thus, where a physician supervises auxiliary personnel to assist him/her in rendering services to patients and includes the charges for their services in his/her own bills, the services of such personnel are considered incident to the physician’s service if there is a physician’s service rendered to which the services of such personnel are an incidental part and there is direct supervision by the physician. This does not mean, however, that to be considered incident to, each occasion of service by auxiliary personnel (or the furnishing of a supply) need also always be the occasion of the actual rendition of a personal professional service by the physician. Such a service or supply could be considered to be incident to when furnished during a course of treatment where the physician performs an initial service and subsequent services of a frequency which reflect his/her active participation in and management of the course of treatment. (However, the direct supervision requirement must still be met with respect to every nonphysician service.) Direct supervision in the office setting does not mean that the physician must be present in the same room with his or her aide. However, the physician must be present in the office suite and immediately available to provide assistance and direction throughout the time the aide is performing services. If auxiliary personnel perform services outside the office setting, e.g., in a patient’s home or in an institution (other than hospital or SNF), their services are covered incident to a physician’s service only if there is direct supervision by the physician. For example, if a nurse accompanied the physician on house calls and administered an injection, the nurse’s services are covered. If the same nurse made the calls alone and administered the injection, the services are not covered (even when billed by the physician) since the physician is not providing direct supervision. Services provided by auxiliary personnel in an institution (e.g., nursing, or convalescent home) present a special problem in determining whether direct physician supervision exists. The availability of the physician by telephone and the presence of the physician somewhere in the institution does not constitute direct supervision. (See §70.3 of the Medicare National Coverage Determinations Manual for instructions used if a physician maintains an office in an institution.) For hospital patients and for SNF patients who are in a Medicare covered stay, there is no Medicare Part B coverage of the services of physician-employed auxiliary personnel as services incident to physicians’ services under §1861(s)(2)(A) of the Act. Such services can be covered only under the hospital or SNF benefit and payment for such services can be made to only the hospital or SNF by a A/B MAC (A). (See §80 concerning physician supervision of technicians performing diagnostic x-ray procedures in a physician’s office.)