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Primary Care Coding Alert

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Is Post-Op Infection Part of Global Period?

Published on Thu Oct 07, 2010

Question: A patient comes in to the clinic nine days after an I&D performed by his family physician after developing an infection on the site. Patient was given oral antibiotics for the infection. Does this still fall under 10060's 10-day global period or can we code this separately using modifier 24? Texas Subscriber Answer: Although this certainly falls within 10060's (Incision and drainage of abscess ...) (I&D) 10-day period for Global Surgical Packages, consideration must be given whether this is a post-op infection directly related to the surgery. To elaborate further, do we really need to consider all postsurgical infections as related to the surgery itself? The answer is no. In a scenario such as above, it would be appropriate to code this separately. From a physician's point of view, post-op infections do not stem directly from the surgery. Many factors not entirely related to the surgery contribute to the [...]
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