Items in NICU

[spejsa]

I am a nurse auditor and am working on a project for our NICU. I need to find out what common items are used in the NICU. Currently, our hospital is not charging at all for supplies and I am working on getting the charges created and a system in place with the financial department.

[Jolie, BSN]

Your question interests me.

Almost 20 years ago, the hospital where I was working stopped charging individual babies for NICU supplies because insurance companies were reimbursing a set amount per day based upon diagnosis and acuity, and the tedious process of charging for patient care items did not result in any increased payment, only a huge expense related to stickering items, tallying up charges and entering them into a computer. By doing away with that process, they were able to eliminate 2 full-time positions from the unit. Makes me wonder what has changed regarding reimbursement to prompt your facility to reverse this process.

The list is endless and varies widely based upon acuity, diagnosis, procedures and length of stay. I would suggest meeting with the NICU management and staff and arranging to have a log kept of several "sample" patients over a period of time.