Don’t miss the 3 tips at the end on how to handle repeat denials.
Proper use of modifier 57 (Decision for surgery) seems simple enough on the surface. But there are some hidden rules you need to know before you attach the modifier to one of your claims.
See how variations in global period definitions and claims edits could spell trouble for your claims, and which steps can help you avoid those problems.
Know Your Payer’s Definition of a Global Period
One potential cause of modifier 57 denials is that payers may have different definitions of a global period.
CMS defines a global surgical package as “all necessary services normally furnished by a surgeon before, during, and after a procedure. Medicare payment for the surgical procedure includes the pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative services routinely performed by the surgeon or by members of the same group with the same specialty. Physicians in the same group practice who are in the same specialty must bill and be paid as though they were a single physician” (www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/downloads/GloballSurgery-ICN907166.pdf).
CMS, along with most other payers, assigns a procedure or service to one of the following types of global surgical packages:
You should use modifier 57 only on an E/M code that represents the decision to perform a procedure with a 90-day global, according to Medicare. In cardiology, you’ll see 90-day globals for procedures such as pacemaker insertion codes 33206 to 33208 or ICD insertion code 33249. Many of your other commonly used procedure codes, like catheterizations, typically have a 0-day global, and in those cases modifier 57 would not be appropriate.
“Both Medicare and CPT® include, for their procedures with a 90-day global, the day of or day before surgery. But many other payers, including many of the Medicaid programs, don’t include a day before surgery, so the only thing they’re concerned about is E/M on the same day as the surgery,” says Marcella Bucknam, CPC, CCS-P, CPC-H, CCS, CPC-P, CCC, COBC, CPC-I, audit manager at CHAN Healthcare in Vancouver, Wash.
What to do: Once you sign a contract with a payer, you’re obligated to know their rules, including their definition of a global period. If you don’t follow their billing rules, you’re most likely losing money by not billing for payable services or by spending money on appeals.
When in doubt, experts suggest following the CPT®/CMS rules. “I do know that the different payers have different ideas about global days,” says Suzan Berman (Hauptman), MPM, CPC, DEDC, CEMC, manager of physician compliance auditing at Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh, Penn. “I tend to be conservative and use the modifier as it has been directed by CPT®/CMS as the day before surgery or the day of surgery when the decision was made at that visit.”
Good practice: AMA suggests keeping a health insurer reference log where you can include the payer’s global period definition, so that it’s at your fingertips when you are coding.
Be Aware of Possible Problems with Payer’s Claims-Editing Software
When you have a continually denied claim for an E/M service and surgery, when the decision for surgery was made as a result of the E/M service, the reason for the denial may be because your codes were mistakenly bundled. The bundling may happen due to the payer’s claims-editing software not recognizing modifier 57.
What to do: Talk to the payer to determine if the denial is the result of a software limitation or the denial is based on a billing rule. Bucknam recommends doing three things when a payer continually denies your claims: