Not necessarily so. The CPT book has their version of the surgical global... and then there is Medicare's version, and like it or not most every carrier follows Medicare. And Medicare considers all complications that do not require a return to the OR a part of the post op global. Here is an excerpt from a Medscape article:
Medicare's view
As is common, Medicare's rules differ slightly from that of CPT. Section 4821 of the Medicare Carriers Manual (available online at cms.hhs.gov/manuals/14_car/3b4820.asp#_1_2) provides a definition of Medicare's global surgical package. Many other payers use this as a model. From a Medicare perspective, surgical procedures include the following services when furnished by the physician who performs the surgery:
The decision for surgery is not part of the surgical package and should be separately coded using an E/M code.
* Preoperative visits after the decision is made to operate beginning with the day before the day of surgery for major procedures and the day of surgery for minor procedures;
* Intraoperative services that are a usual and necessary part of a surgical procedure;
* All additional medical or surgical services required of the physician during the postoperative period of the surgery because of complications not requiring additional trips to the operating room;
* Follow-up visits during the postoperative period of the surgery that are related to recovery from the surgery;
* Postsurgical pain management;
* Certain supplies;
* Miscellaneous services (e.g., dressing changes; local incision care; removal of operative packs; removal of cutaneous sutures and staples, lines, wires, tubes, drains, casts and splints; insertion, irrigation and removal of urinary catheters, routine peripheral intravenous lines, nasogastric and rectal tubes; and changes and removal of tracheostomy tubes).
Note a couple of distinctions between the Medicare and CPT package: First, unlike CPT, Medicare includes in the surgical package treatment of complications that do not require additional trips to the operating room. Second, unlike CPT, the postoperative part of Medicare's global period is not open-ended. Medicare assigns postoperative global periods of 90 days to major surgeries and either zero or 10 days to minor surgeries and endoscopies. Any services beyond the Medicare postoperative global period, even if related to the procedure, are separately reportable. If you have any questions about the length of the postoperative global period assigned to a given code, you can find it in the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule database, available online at cms.hhs.gov/physicians/mpfsapp/step0.asp.
