Wiki Hospital Rounding Billing

[ashevillegirl]

When tasked with billing for hospital visits, not coding them, but billing them - is it standard practice to read over over hospital note you are billing for? Currently, I am not reading over hospital visit notes, as the provider tells me who they saw and what level to bill. It was bought to my attention that I should be reading over each note before I bill for them. I wanted to get info from others, as in twenty plus years in "billing" not coding, I have never read over a hospital visit note before keying the charge, nor have I ever had a problem with that when audited by the insurance carrier. Please let me you your thoughts on this, or if you can point me to any "billing" rules that state I must read over the notes. As a coder, I would say most def, but as a "biller" I think not. Help please.

 

[thomas7331]

There are no rules that require this for billers, and if your job responsibilities do not include coding or auditing, I'm not sure what purpose it would serve to be reading over the notes. Biller responsibilities are largely defined by the employer, so this would be a question to put to your supervisor or manager - they may in fact want you to look at the notes to verify that the documentation is complete and roughly matches what you are billing as a way to double-check the provider and prevent an error, but on the other hand they may not want you spending your time doing that if they already have a process in place where the coding and documentation accuracy is reviewed or monitored by someone else.

 

[ashevillegirl]

Thank you

Thank you for your imput. I was thinking exactly the same thing. There is a huge difference between being a "biller" vs a "coder." Thanks for your thoughts.