Thank you for the above info. It's very helpful. I'm wondering if you could describe the type of surgeries that are typically longer than an hour? How frequently done are they? Thank you.
What you refer to as "surgeries" can differ from cases. A bilateral four-eyelid blepharoplasty with endotine browlifts can take over two hours, but it counts as six codeable procedures (more, I suppose, if you are one of those crafty types.)
I knew of a retina surgeon--a very good one--who often said that if you couldn't do the surgery--one of his, he meant--in an hour, you couldn't do it. But many of his cases were straightforward. Other equally-regarded surgeons went over an hour regularly for complex cases. Giant retinal tear repairs, cases involving extensive dissection of retinal gliosis, applications involving laser and use of vitreous replacement materials, particularly silicone oil exchanges all take a lot of time, usually well more than an hour at the table.
Add a related procedure like a cataract extraction, then even more time.
Trauma repair can easily send the clock over an hour. So can deep orbital explorations and tumor resections (that is if you don't want to make problems). Multiple muscle recess-resections, reconstructive procedures (which themselves often are described with more than one CPT code, sometimes many more) all go over one hour, even if you aren't waiting on frozen section pathology.
