I would like to get a look at a hospital’s “secret charge book”, but it would probably just make my blood pressure skyrocket, then I’d have to go to the doctor…
You should see those coder books, it’s impossible to know all of that and interpretations to bill. The EMR automatically captures charges for ICD’s, level of care (the more you document the more your ROI will be), chargemasters, orders.
Than you have your medical coders whom will go over the patient chart and catch additional charges, code to the insurance coverage, or they may knock the level of care down. For instance a provider and nurse can document to a level 5 for a broken nose but no insurance is paying for that, so the coder will knock that level of care down to a 2. Honestly you can stick 5 coders or 5 medical records staff members in a room and they will all disagree with each other how to code/bill.