OP transfusion

[pbaker]

How does everyone deal with OP transfusion billing when the patient comes in the day before for testing? Our admitting department has problems with using the same account OP account over multiple days. But our specimen and all the crossmatches are tied to the pre-testing account. We have Meditech 5.6, converting soon to 6.0.

[Deny Morlino]

The patient is issued a new billing number upon the return visit. We use this number to bill for the unit(s) transfused that day. Nursing uses the same billing number to charge for the transfusion process. We tie the patient across the day by the blood bank number on the patient's blood bank band.

[Likewine99]

We are the same as Denny. Our patient history is kept together by the med record number.

[L106]

We do the same as Deny and Likewine99. (New billing number each day, but sam medical records number.)

[Bill]

Medical Records does a record merge at time of coding. This way all goes on one bill and according to our medical records dept, this is how our medicare carrier wants it done.

[L106]

Sorry, Bill.....I can't really answer that. I'm not sure what goes on "behind the scene", but I assume that the different billing numbers generate different bills. (The medical carriers may vary in their practices, too.)

I do know that our "specimen collection date" has to be withing the "billing date" period. Example, our billing department will reject a charge if the "Out Patient Billing Date" for the Crossmatches is 1/7/2011 and we use a patient specimen drawn on 1/6/2011. (I have to end up sending through a manual charge for the crossmatch testing on the patient's 1/7/2011 billing account number.)

Donna

[EDibble]

Our billing numbers for out patients are good for three days for the same service. So any lab work, including BB, can be done the day after the blood is drawn with no problem.

[bldbnkr]

We use SoftBank and have the option for billing an "Alternative Stay", that is, putting in the billing number on the day of transfusion at the time the blood is signed out. Of course the transfusion slip still has the original billing number, but the nurses often cover it up with the correct number by pasting the patient's hospital identification sticker over that old number.

It crosses over into billing correctly and we have not had any problems with it.

[mla]

We consider our transfusion patients to be 23 hour admissions and preadmit them. That way we can use the same account to perform the testing, but they are still considered outpatient admissions.

[WFMB]

How does everyone deal with OP transfusion billing when the patient comes in the day before for testing? Our admitting department has problems with using the same account OP account over multiple days. But our specimen and all the crossmatches are tied to the pre-testing account. We have Meditech 5.6, converting soon to 6.0.

We creat a PRE CLI account if the patient is drawn one day and given the blood products within the next 72 hours. We create a REG CLI if they are drawn and given the same day. We have Meditech 5.5 but going to 6.5 in a few months. Good luck with your conversion to 6.0 (Blood Bank is not as bad as other areas).

[pbaker]

WFMB, If they come in the next day, do you change the PRE account to a REG account and use the same account number??

[sbrodbeck]

This response is based on an acute care facility performing outpatient services. As mentioned by folks on this thread the Blood Bank clinical history is managed by a unique medical records number. It is very important for the admitting staff to use a "pre-admit" status for a unique financial account encounter when the patient comes in for the initial testing. If inside the appropriate timing, the patient returns for the transfsuion the "pre-admit" account is changed to an "outpatient" account. I am not aware of any HISs that don't offer this status. This would be a much more efficient approach than creating two accounts that may or may not be merged appropraitely after discharge.