Therapists, or therapy assistants, working together as a "team" to treat one or more patients cannot each bill separately for the same or different service provided at the same time to the same patient.
CPT codes are used for billing the services of one therapist or therapy assistant. The therapist cannot bill for his/her services and those of another therapist or a therapy assistant, when both provide the same or different services, at the same time, to the same patient(s). Where a physical and occupational therapist both provide services to one patient at the same time, only one therapist can bill for the entire service or the PT and OT can divide the service units. For example, a PT and an OT work together for 30 minutes with one patient on transfer activities. The PT and OT could each bill one unit of 97530. Alternatively, the 2 units of 97530 could be billed by either the PT or the OT, but not both. Similarly, if two therapy assistants provide services to the same patient at the same time, only the service of one therapy assistant can be billed by the supervising therapist or the service units can be split between the two therapy assistants and billed by the supervising therapist(s).