Global Surgical Package: When to Bill and When Not to Bill, That is the Question

Why This Topic Matters

Global surgical billing affects whether services are bundled into a surgery or reported separately. Understanding the scope of the global period helps reduce claim errors, avoid unbundling issues, and support compliant reporting across different care settings.

Article Sections

1. Global surgical package and global periods

   Introduces the concept of the global surgical package and summarizes the major global period categories discussed in the article. It also notes how the package is applied across different care settings.

2. Services included in the global surgical package

   Outlines broad categories of pre-operative, intra-operative, and post-operative care that may fall within the package. The section also references edits used to review surgical bundling issues.

3. Services not included in the global surgical package

   Reviews general categories of encounters and services that may be reported separately from the global surgical package. It discusses related evaluation and management considerations, provider relationships, and transfer-of-care situations.

4. Diagnostic tests and procedures

   Covers additional procedural situations that may occur during the post-operative period and explains the broader classification of those events. It includes distinct procedures, staged services, complications, and more extensive follow-up procedures.

5. Critical care services

   Describes the relationship between critical care and the global surgical package. It focuses on the general conditions under which critical care may be considered separately from routine post-operative care.

6. Medicare Administrative Contractor resource

   Mentions an online Medicare resource for reviewing global day information and date calculations. The section is presented as a practical reference for checking surgical global periods.