Brenda: We bill outpatients - now, if I only had space to see the moms...but that's another issue. We really don't do any advertising. It's mostly word of mouth or a mom just shows up wanting to be seen. The hospital I work in is part of a large corporation. I contacted our corporate people a couple of years ago about the feasibility of billing both inpatients and outpatients. I was given billing numbers and a fee structure - our fees are based on time. We bill $53 for a Level I visit of 20 minutes or less, $105 for a Level II visit of 20-45 minutes, and $210 for a Level III visit which is anything over 45 minutes. We all know how long a visit that involves a feeding is. Most of our visits are Level III billings, and do include any equipment except pump kits. We currently do not rent pumps or do any kind of retail business. One of our techs does my billing for me. She is also kind enough to do the billing after the visit. All she asks is that I make a copy of the mom's driver's license and her insurance card, write down the visit level and make sure there is a doctor's order in the chart. I work under a standing order, which saves the mom from having to stop at the doctor's office and get a prescription and saves the office staff from having to fax an order over to me. This saves mom from having to sit in outpatient admitting for who knows how long with a screaming, hungry baby. She can come right up to my office. I very rarely have a mom tell me that her insurance would not cover a LC visit - I tell them when I set up her appointment to check with her insurance. For any mom who will not be covered by insurance, the visit is free. I almost had Corporate convinced that we should also bill for inpatient lactation visits, but then they decided that LC visits were part of the nurses' education at the bedside and wouldn't allow it. We are looking into billing in a situation where mom has been discharged, but is seeing Lactation when she comes in to see her SCN baby. I can some days spend quite a bit of time with what is technically an outpatient SCN mom and we are not considering these billable visits. Hope this helps. Pam Hirsch, BSN,RN,IBCLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html