Assistant

An assistant is an individual who is licensed or certified to assist a licensed physician in the practice of medicine.  An assistant may be a Physicians Assistant, Nurse Practitioner, Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist, Anesthesia Assistant, etc.  An assistant is always considered a member of a practice and performs services under the legal umbrella of a division.  However, the assistant may be employed by a hospital or another entity outside of the practice.  If the assistant is employed by the practice or division, the division may bill for the services performed by the assistant.   However, if the assistant is employed outside of the practice or division, the division may not bill for the services performed by the assistant.

If in our Anesthesia Associates of America example the anesthesia services, chronic pain services, and critical care services were billed under separate divisions, each assistant would have a personal social security number and a state license number.  In addition, in order to bill certain carriers under the division, an assistant may also need a number assigned by the carrier for each division.  Examples of this include Medicare numbers, Medicaid numbers, etc.  Assistant is a standard sort and control-break function in the software.