Wiki Office Drug Administered During Surgery in Hospital

[rbassett]

A medication supplied by our office was administered during a surgery at the hospital. I can't bill for the drug administration because it's bundled with the surgery code, but how do I bill for the drug code if it wasn't supplied by the hospital? I'm always used to not charging for the drugs because they are usually supplied by the hospital and so they bill for that but in this case I'm not sure...
TIA!

 

[thomas7331]

You would need to invoice the hospital and request reimbursement for this since only the facility can bill the insurance for drugs used during facility procedures. It really shouldn't be your office's responsibility to supply medications for use at a facility - hospitals have pharmacies on site that can order the drugs and have them available for use during the procedure. In fact, I would be surprised if it was not against the hospital's policies for a provider to bring in outside medication since if there was any kind of a problem, the hospital would be likely responsible and would need to be able to have that specific drug information available in their records.

 

[rbassett]

You would need to invoice the hospital and request reimbursement for this since only the facility can bill the insurance for drugs used during facility procedures. It really shouldn't be your office's responsibility to supply medications for use at a facility - hospitals have pharmacies on site that can order the drugs and have them available for use during the procedure. In fact, I would be surprised if it was not against the hospital's policies for a provider to bring in outside medication since if there was any kind of a problem, the hospital would be likely responsible and would need to be able to have that specific drug information available in their records.

Thanks so much for this info. I was kind of wondering if this was going to be the case. He's done it on a few patients and I asked him why he didn't have the hospital order the drug for the surgery and he said it was because it was easier to just bring it from the office Luckily he is super understanding and is now going to make sure he orders it from the hospital. Now just waiting for the hospital to get back to me to see if they can reimburse us for it!