# Out Patient/In Patient Billing



## randiroyder (Mar 11, 2010)

I work for a group of Hospitalist. The patient doctor in the clinic sends him to the hospital to be admitted. The out patient doctor types up an admitance H&P but does not go to the hospital, and charges for an initial hospital visit. The Hospitalist gets the patient to admit. The Hospital does another H&P, order labs and all other necessary items for an admitance. My Question is the out patient Dr is an Internal Med Doc and the Hospitalis is also under Internal Medicine. Can we both bill? If the outpatient doctor bills an outpatient visit and the Hospitalist bills for the initial hospital visit. Both doctors are in separate groups.

Thanks


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## cheermom68 (Mar 11, 2010)

*inpatient/outpatient*

If the internal physician is not seeing the patient in the hospital, he cannot charge the inpatient hospital visit, he would charge an office visit and the hospitalist would be the one to charge the initial hospital charge.


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## randiroyder (Mar 11, 2010)

*Thanks*

so even though they are both Internal Medicine doctors they can still both bill? I guess they are two differenct specialties, regular internal med and the other hospitalist.

Thanks for the help,


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## cheermom68 (Mar 11, 2010)

*inpatient*

As long as they are not in the same practice, the internal med Dr. would bill an office visit and the hospitalist would bill the initial inpatient code.  However you had said that the internal med Dr. was billing the initial inpatient code, which he cannot because he is not seeing the patient in the hospital.


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## randiroyder (Mar 15, 2010)

*Thanks*

Thank you all for your help, this is what I needed to know.


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