Orthopedic Coding Alert
Reader Questions:
Defining Global Periods
Published on Sun Aug 01, 1999
Question: Who defines the accepted time for the global period? Medicare defines only 10 and 90 days, while other nationally recognized resources like Medicode define periods of 15, 45 and 90 days.
Anonymous IN Subscriber
Answer: Global periods may be defined by each individual insurance carrier. Although in most parts of the country carriers have adopted Medicares guidelines, there are variations by carrier. Check with your state workers comp manual, as well as your top five to 10 carriers for your practice and ask them for their global periods.
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