I haven't actually contacted the company directly, but here's what I found out regarding how some of the billing is handled
(in most situations):

The billing codes are set up based on whether there is a doc present during the evaluation and programming or whether it is just the rep. Here's a quote taken from the billing manual

Quote:

An office visit can only be billed separately when a full-scale, separately identifiable evaluation and management service takes place in addition to analysis and programming.

There is a facility charge as well as a physician office charge.

Quote:

The patient or payer should not be billed for services rendered solely by the manufacturer’s representative.

So in essence, there's no charge for just meeting with the rep, however there can be a facility or office charge. If you meet with the rep and the doc, then there's a facility or office charge and a physician charge.

I'm pretty sure your Dr should NOT be billing you for the office visits when it's only you with the Rep. If the Dr is NOT there, he cannot be billing.

Now, maybe yours are extenuating circumstances due to your fall, I'm not sure......but the Reps do the reprogramming for NO CHARGE.

Maybe there are different guidelines in different jurisdictions, but I do medical billing and we had to sit thru hours of on-line conference calling workshops due to the big Medicare guideline effective at the beginning of this year where they did away with 'consultation' coding and replaced them with E&M (Evaluation and Management) coding.
You probably aren't a Medicare patient, but more of the commercial Insurance companies are following suit and what this means is that they can NOT be billing you for all these office visits if you are an 'established patient', unless there are new diagnostic issues going into your med records.

I still have yet to talk to the Medtronic Rep. I'll let you know when i do and you let me know k.....