Charge-process strategies for outpatient prospective payment.

One of the most important strategies for operating successfully under the outpatient prospective payment system is to establish an effective charging process. Achieving control of the process begins with a thorough assessment of chargemaster coding, how charges are structured in the chargemaster, and how hospital departments use the charges. Once problems are identified and corrected, the next step is to develop a system to maintain and monitor both the chargemaster and the charging process. Perhaps the most important component of the monitoring system is to include a mechanism to provide the necessary feedback to departments regarding errors related to the charge process.