Physician assistants, supporting surgical patients in North Carolina.
Elite Hands is a board-certified physician assistant service that is often selected by surgeons in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and surrounding areas to support them during surgeries.
Qualified “first assistants,” as we are typically known, are medically necessary in major surgical cases and serve as valuable members of the operating room team. We may also meet with patients and families before surgery, and make follow-up visits afterward.
The aim of everything we do is to decrease the amount of time spent in the operating room and under anesthesia – which can facilitate a more rapid recovery, lead to a shorter hospital stay and decrease the overall cost of health care.
How the process works.
In the past, most patients were unaware that this type of service was even billed to them, since traditionally it was simply lumped in with charges from the hospital or doctor’s office. We take an innovative approach to billing that makes the use of first assistants clearer to patients, and allows more surgeons to take advantage of our expertise.
Our process is simple: Elite Hands is listed as a separate line item on the bill you receive from the hospital or physician. We bill the insurance company directly on the patient’s behalf; reimbursement to us covers part of the total bill, and the patient is responsible for the remainder. (On occasion insurance companies will send reimbursement checks directly to the patient; these should be forwarded to Elite Hands immediately so that they can be credited to the patient’s account.)
