Wiki Hospital Rounding

[victoriaholmes]

Some of our orthopedic doctors perform total hip and knee replacements. These doctors have decided that they can bill hospital visits, for medical issues unrelated to the patient's hip and knee replacement surgeries. Our doctors have been told (by who knows?) that if they are monitoring a patient's HTN, DMM, GERD, etc, that they can bill an unrelated hospital visit. The patient is in the hospital because they had a total joint replacement and our doctor's claim that the hospitalists are not rounding on their total's patients. Help, I feel that this is part of the global surgical package, no change in meds or treatment of these other problems has occurred. Can anyone point me to documentation supporting that these visits cannot be billed separately and are part of the global surgical package?

Thanks!!!!

 

[mhstrauss]

Some of our orthopedic doctors perform total hip and knee replacements. These doctors have decided that they can bill hospital visits, for medical issues unrelated to the patient's hip and knee replacement surgeries. Our doctors have been told (by who knows?) that if they are monitoring a patient's HTN, DMM, GERD, etc, that they can bill an unrelated hospital visit. The patient is in the hospital because they had a total joint replacement and our doctor's claim that the hospitalists are not rounding on their total's patients. Help, I feel that this is part of the global surgical package, no change in meds or treatment of these other problems has occurred. Can anyone point me to documentation supporting that these visits cannot be billed separately and are part of the global surgical package?

Thanks!!!!

If your ortho providers really are providing care for non op-related issues, they should have the right to bill for these services, with appropriate documentation and modifiers, of course. I think the bigger question would be, why aren't the hospitalists rounding on these patients? Sounds like the issue goes a bit higher up... Have the hospitalists been consulted so that your patients will be added to their rounds? This issue doesn't seem like a cut and dry global package question, just my opinion...