Wiki E/M vists during Global Period

[lindalouise55]

I have a patient that had a cholecystectomy in March 2012 and is now back with abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting and ileocolitis. The physician is trying to rule out other things such as appendicitis as well. We are still in the global period and I know that I should code the initial H & P as 99222 with an AI modifier (he admitted the patient) and a 24 for unrelated to the global. My question is the patient had several 99231 visits and a discharge of 99238 do we append the 24 modifier to those as well. I appreciate any guidance.

 

[BEARDOG]

I have had the same scenario and I did use the-24 modifier on all the em codes that were submitted for billing. As long as the visits are within the global period and unrelated to the surgery I would use the modifier for all dates of service that fell within the global period for the e/m codes.