I am a IBCLC in a large hospital in Greenville, South Carolina.  I am looking for information from those of us who work in a hospital setting who bill seperate for the lactation services.  Levels of care at different amounts, coding for reimbursement to Lactation departments.  Staffing ratio of Lactations Consultants to patient care. education reimbursement.  How do you model your care? How do you get money into your dept?  

  A little about us. We do about 5000 to 6000 deliveries a year.  Our "delivery recession" has stoped and our numbers are increasing.  We do teaching in Dr offices and clinics for "family centered" maternity care, we see outpatients at our office for fee 45$. We  have a "warm line" for phone calls at no charge.  We have a 50 bed NICU unit and our mother baby is about 55 beds.  We are currently rent and sell breastfeeding items and that money comes back to the Education dept.  We staff of 5 full time 2 part time and 3 prn consultants.  I think this may be low compared to other hospitals of our size.  I dont have our FTE, our hospital does not pay for any lisence or education "upkeep" for our IBCLC.  

I know this may be a lot of information to post back.  I am really hoping that I can find some ideas from others to improve our dept so we may staff better.  If you would like to talk in person please email me 
[log in to unmask]
We can exchange numbers and set up a call time if that work better for you.
I have proposed several ideas but as with a hospital setting if we can show them a model that works then we can change ours *maybe* efficently.
Thank you all who took the time to read and reply.  We are all busy and I appreciate it greatly

Melliss Willette Rn, IBCLC
Greenville, South Carolina
USA

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome