Yes. AA includes all the health fund fees for all the Medicare item numbers. Also, AA calculates the multiple surgical rule automatically. That is, 100% for the first item, 50% for the second, 25% for the rest. Surgical assistant accounts can also be done.

 

There are just a few item numbers which are used (51300 – 51318), and these calculate the fee based on the surgical items on the account. For example, item 32703 has a surgical fee of 1188.20 when entered on its own. For surgical assistance, you enter the item 51303 after adding any other surgical items to the account, and the fee is calculated by taking 20% of the total surgical fee.

 

The health fund fee is also calculated, usually using a percentage of the Medicare fee, rather than 20% of the fund fee for the surgical item. In the below example,

 

Medicare fee        1188.20 / 5 = 237.65

AHSA fee        237.65 x 1.43 = 339.85

 

The rate of 1.43 is different for each health fund. Note that the AHSA fee is not calculated as 1766.30 / 5 = 353.26.

 

All the surgical items should be added to the account before adding the surgical assistant item, because the calculation causes the fees for the surgical items to be set to zero. If you later need to make adjustments, you need to re-enter all surgical items, then the surgical assistant item.

 

There is a shortcut to entering the surgical assistant item – enter ‘sa’ into the item number field, and AA will select the correct assistant item number for you.

 

Not all surgical items are available to assistants. Those that are will display a small red ‘A’ in the AU column.