Summary & Overview
HCPCS Level II A4550: Surgical Trays
HCPCS Level II code A4550 designates surgical trays — prepackaged sets of instruments and supplies prepared for use during operative procedures. This code identifies a common supply item used across surgical settings and is relevant to hospital operating rooms, ambulatory surgery centers, and outpatient surgical suites. Nationally, standardized reporting of supply items like surgical trays matters for supply chain transparency, billing consistency, and procedure cost accounting.
Key payers covered in this analysis include Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna Health, UnitedHealthcare, and Medicare. Readers will find an overview of the clinical context for A4550, typical sites of service, and what to expect when billing for packaged surgical supplies. The publication outlines common modifiers associated with supply and surgical service billing and notes available metadata; where input data is missing, the summary clearly indicates that specific items (such as associated taxonomies, ICD-10 pairings, or related codes) are not available.
This resource is intended as a concise reference for coding professionals, billing staff, and policy analysts seeking an understanding of how a surgical tray supply item is represented in HCPCS Level II coding, the payer landscape typically involved, and the types of operational considerations linked to this code.
Billing Code Overview
HCPCS Level II code A4550 describes surgical trays. These are prepackaged trays containing instruments and supplies organized for use during surgical procedures. Service type: supply of surgical tray for operative procedures. Typical site of service: hospital operating room, ambulatory surgery center, or outpatient surgical suite.
Data not available in the input.
Clinical & Coding Specifications
Clinical Context
A typical patient scenario involves an adult scheduled for a minor outpatient surgical procedure requiring a prepackaged sterile A4550 surgical tray. Example: a 46-year-old patient presents to an ambulatory surgery center for excision of a small skin lesion under local anesthesia. The clinical workflow: the surgeon documents the indication and planned procedure; the nursing team verifies the sterile A4550 surgical tray contents (gauze, sterile gloves, drapes, basic instrument set) and opens the tray in the procedure room; local anesthesia is administered; the surgeon performs the excision using instruments from the tray; specimens are handled per pathology protocol; the tray components are accounted for, and the encounter is coded for facility supply using A4550 and the appropriate CPT for the excision procedure. Typical sites of service include ambulatory surgical centers, hospital outpatient departments, and physician office procedure rooms where minor sterile procedures are performed.
Coding Specifications
| Modifier | Description | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
25 | Significant, separately identifiable evaluation and management service by the same physician on the same day of the procedure | Use when a distinct E/M visit is documented the same day as a procedure using consumables |