General Surgery Coding Alert

Recognize Impact of 0-Day Global Period

Published on Wed May 17, 2023

As you just read in “Delve Deeper For Hernia Repair Coding Update,” CPT^®2023 deleted open and laparoscopic hernia repair codes and replaced them with new codes 49591-49618 (Repair of anterior abdominal hernia(s) (ie, epigastric, incisional, ventral, umbilical, spigelian), any approach (ie, open, laparoscopic, robotic) …)

There’s more: Another thing that changed in 2023 for reporting hernia repair is that these new codes have zero global days. “This means that any follow up that needs to be done afterward can be billed separately,” said Kelly Shew, RHIA, CPC, CPCO, CDEO, CPB, CPMA, CPPM, CRC, documentation and coding education, Olympia Medical in Livonia, Michigan, in the March 15 AAPC Ask & Learn Webinar titled “2023 Changes for Hernia Coding.”

For example, if a patient stays one night and is discharged the following day, you can report 99238 (Hospital inpatient or observation discharge day management; 30 minutes or less on the date of the encounter) or 99239 (… more than 30 minutes…) for the day following the procedure. If the provider cared for the patient for five hospital days, they can now report an inpatient evaluation and management (E/M) code for each day the patient was seen.

A 0-day global period also means that you can separately report any simple follow-up services, such as wound debridement or suture removal, that the surgeon provides in the office. All in all, this makes coding considerably easier. You don’t have to track any additional services, making the tracking and reimbursement processes less complex when compared to procedures that have longer global periods.