Dear Leader Reid, Leader McConnell, Speaker Boehner, and Leader Pelosi:
The undersigned organizations strongly urge Congress to 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.
At a minimum, Congress should stop CMS from implementing the transition of 10- and 90-day
global codes to 0-day global codes until Congress has been provided with a methodology that
has been endorsed by the medical specialty societies whose procedures will be affected and that
has been tested to ensure there is no negative impact on patient care and access.
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. This process will alter the valuation of over 40 percent of CPT codes and
will require a tremendous amount of time and resources not congruent with CMS’ final timeline
…
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