How many neurosurgery disputes are in the published record?

19,990 across the 2023 through 2025 public use files, with an 88 percent provider win rate on decided disputes and a median award of $25,000.

What did the lumbar decompression code pay in 2025?

Code 63047 appeared in 2,699 disputes, won 84.1 percent of decisions, and paid a median decided award of $44,950 against a median QPA of $291.54.

Are prior IDR awards usable as evidence?

Yes. Decided awards are published in the CMS public use files, and comparable published outcomes for the same codes and payers are standard evidence in subsequent submissions.

Answers / The neurosurgery record

The neurosurgery IDR record

CMS has published 19,990 federal IDR disputes with neurosurgery line items across the 2023 through 2025 files. Neurosurgeons won 88 percent of decided ones at a median award of $25,000. In 2025, lumbar laminectomy with decompression (63047) appeared in 2,699 disputes, won 84.1 percent, and paid a median decided award of $44,950 against a median QPA of $291.54.

The headline numbers

Across 2023 through 2025, neurosurgery line items show up in 19,990 published No Surprises Act disputes. Arbitrators sided with the neurosurgeon 88 percent of the time on decided cases, at a $25,000 median decided award. Only a handful of specialties clear both marks, and none of them combine that win rate with this award size at this volume. For a group weighing whether its out-of-network book is worth arbitrating, the published base rate is the answer: filed neurosurgical claims win, and they win large.

The decompression line up close

The highest-volume clean neurosurgical code in the 2025 files is 63047, lumbar laminectomy with decompression of the cauda equina or nerve roots. It appeared in 2,699 disputes. Providers won 84.1 percent of decisions. The median QPA was $291.54 and the median decided award was $44,950, a multiple above 60. That is a single-level decompression: add instrumentation, additional levels, or a co-surgeon, and one case produces several arbitrable lines that travel together in one dispute.

What sits behind the win rate

Federal arbitration is baseball-style: each side submits one number and the arbitrator must pick one. A neurosurgeon's submission arrives with operative notes, acuity documentation, and training credentials attached to a code the payer benchmarked in the hundreds. The published record shows how that contest has gone. It also compounds: every decided award is published, and prior awards for the same codes are evidence in the next case. The record neurosurgeons built from 2023 through 2025 is now the floor under every new filing.

Reading the record before filing

The full dataset is public and explorable at idrexplorer.com: code-level medians, payer-level win rates, state splits. A group can look up its own codes and counterparties before committing to anything. Lido IDR prices its offers off that same record, filing for a flat fee per arbitration, which at neurosurgical award sizes changes the economics of every decided case.

Check the decompression numbers first

Lido IDR anchors each neurosurgical offer to decided awards on the same codes and payers, and files for a flat fee per arbitration. Talk to an IDR specialist.