What Is Global Service Medical Billing?

When medical billings include both the technical and professional components, the procedure performed falls in the category of a global service. This differs from when a billing breaks down the procedure's components into separate units.

Surgery

• Surgeries qualify as examples of global services, according to "Understanding Health Insurance: A Guide to Billing and Reimbursement." Billing for these services covers presurgical evaluation and management, initial and follow-up visits, the operation itself, discharge visit and any post-op care performed in the doctor's office.

Radiology

• Radiology procedures such as x-rays also can qualify as global services when the doctor providing the services does so from a hospital, making use of the facility lab. This differs from when x-ray services are performed in the doctor's office and the results are then sent to a separate radiology lab for evaluation.

Considerations

• According to "Radiology Business Practice: How to Succeed," billing of the technical component of a global procedure covers expenses "not directly related to the physician's effort." The professional component, however, reimburses the doctor's "spent resources," which include his work, practice expenses and costs of malpractice insurance.