On Sept. 6, the AANS and the CNS, along with 18 other national surgical societies, submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) urging the agency to adjust the post-operative visit values of the 10- and 90-day global surgery codes to reflect the increases in the recently updated office/outpatient visit evaluation and management (E/M) codes regarding global surgery code values. The letter urged CMS to:
- Adjust these codes to reflect the new office visit E/M values while CMS makes future decisions on how to address potentially misvalued global codes; and
- Use the American Medical Association/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee’s misvalued code process to address any inappropriately valued global codes.
The letter also provided detailed responses to several questions posed by the agency and included an extensive compendium of past comments, letters from Congress to CMS on this issue and other relevant information. Since the inception of the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, CMS has increased the global codes to reflect increases in the separately billable E/M codes as the agency continues to believe the global surgery codes are overvalued.
Click here to read the letter.
