When George Lai of Portland, Oregon, took his toddler son to a pediatrician last summer for a checkup, the doctor noticed a little splinter in the child’s palm. “He must have gotten it between the front door and the car,” Lai later recalled, and the child wasn’t complaining. The doctor grabbed a pair of forceps — aka tweezers — and pulled out the splinter in “a second,” Lai said. That brief tug was transformed into a surgical billing code: Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code 10120, “incision and removal of a foreign body, subcutaneous” — at a cost of $414.

  • 93maddie94@lemm.ee
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    6 hours ago

    Can I sue for malpractice if my general practitioner is practicing “surgery” while not being a surgeon then?

    • gramie@lemmy.ca
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      6 hours ago

      I don’t believe so. As I understand it, all doctors are eligible to perform any procedures. Some of them just decide to get better at it before they do.