Practice Management Alert

Question: Our practice sees several patients who are on limited incomes. Our physician would like to extend the global period of surgical procedures in order to provide continued post-surgical care to these patients for free. Can we do this? Answer: No, unfortunately, your practice cannot arbitrarily extend the global period of a surgical procedure in order to save a patient money. If a patient needs to be seen after the global period ends, you must charge for the services rendered. Here's why: If you do not charge for those visits beyond the global period to help the financially strapped patient, the doctor runs the risk of noncompliance with a variety of statutes and regulations, including federal false claims and Stark anti-kickback laws, and CMS coding guidelines, not to mention your payer contracts. Most global periods are designed to cover two or three postoperative office visits. If you're your physician gives [...]