GLOBAL SURGICAL CODES
Legislative Request Regarding Transition of 10- and 90-day Global Codes
Request: Congress should rescind the policy in the 2015 Final Medicare Physician Fee Schedule
Rule to transition 10– and 90–day global period codes to 0-day global period codes in 2017, and
2018, respectively.
Background
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently finalized a policy that will transition all 10-
and 90-day global codes to 0-day global codes by 2017 and 2018 respectively. Global codes include
necessary services normally furnished by a surgeon before, during, and after a surgical procedure.
Global codes are classified as 0-day (typically endoscopies or some minor procedures), 10-day (typically
other minor procedures with a 10-day post-operative period), or 90-day (typically major procedures with a
90-day post-operative period). Approximately 4,200 of the over 9,900 Current Procedural Terminology
(CPT) codes are 10- or 90-day global codes.
Despite the fact that the policy will affect 10-day global codes in 2017 and 90-day global codes in 2018,
CMS has not yet developed a methodology for making this transition. In fact, the agency has stated that
it does not know how best to proceed. However, in order to implement the change, CMS must begin to
transition all these codes no later than February 2016.
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