Please bear with me on this question, as I'm new to billing.
If a laceration was treated at an ER, then we see the patient as follow up and further treatment. Does the Global period follow the patient or is it limited to the ER. Can we charge the 1st office visits and subsequent ones?
Thanks in advance for your input.
Yes, global period is considered if the patient visits for further follow up. If further treatment is necessary for this previsouly performed laceration repair then you can bill this with an appropriate modifier (e.g. 78/58).But if the reason of visit is something different/different dx then you can report a office visit code.
When you say, we, if you mean a different specialty, such as family practice, is providing the postoperative care and the ED provides the surgical care, you should work out an arrangement where you each use the modifier that appropraitely describes the services you provide. The ED would report the fracture care code appended with modifier 54 to indicate the surgical care only. The FP could then provide the postoperative care (meaning the initial office visit and subsequent related visits for 90 days from the fracture treatment)and bill for it with the fracture care code appended with modifier 55 for postoperative management only.
As Alex indicates above, if the office visit is unrelated to the fracture care, report an office visit code.
Jen Godreau, CPC, CPEDC
Content Director, SuperCoder.com
You must log in to post.
