The cost of healthcare is perennially a hot-button issue in the United States. Regardless of your stance on who ought to be footing the bill, it’s worth taking the time to learn how the private hospital billing process works. The following is a simple primer on a complicated process: there are a huge number of considerations that go into hospital billing, and many bills pass between multiple firms, sometimes several times each if multiple audits are required. That said, even a simple bill will at least pass through these basic steps.
Patient Care and Coding
The first step is always to make sure the patient receives appropriate care. This is handled up-front by the check in process, which performs triage and obtains a basic health history. Then the patient is diagnosed and treated. Once discharged, the billing process begins properly, as the hospital inventories what was done. This creates a “code” …