Re: Nutrition Visit Costs

[Guest guest]

We bill 60.00 and hour for f/u nutrition visits and bill in 15 minutes increments. We charge $15 per fifteen minutes

From: sprinta2004 <bspruill@...>Subject: Nutrition Visit Costs Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2012, 7:26 AM

Hi everyone. Does anyone have any suggestions about the amount to bill patients for nutrition visits?At my program, patients come to see me for 3 to 6 months of Supervised weight loss, then we have a nutrition class to prep patients for surgery and to follow up 2 to 3 weeks post operativly for instruction for the progression of diet. I am also thinking about beginning to encourage patients to follow up 3, 6, and 12 months post operatively. The problem is, the office charges a nutrition fee of $50 every time the patient comes to see me. This leads to patients wanting to go to other programs for the SWL or complaining about the cost of the visits. I asked the nurse who has been at this program for a couple of years and she said they use to have a set program fee, but that they phased it out. If anyone would love to share their information regarding how your program deals with nutrition visit fees or set up, that would

be a great help. Maybe, we might need to change how it is set up. Do you think a Dietitian being credentialed through an insurance company would help? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Britni Sullivan, RD, LD

[Guest guest]

I am contracted in a physician’s office and all of my services are out of pocket. Pre-operatively, I charge patients for the individual visit or class on the day the service is incurred. However, I charge a flat bulk fee for post-op visits up to 1 year post-op. I see LGBP, VSG, and DS pts at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 months post-op and AGB monthly (these follow up visits average about 15-20 minutes per appt). The post-op fee is collected about 1-2 weeks prior to the operation when the MD fees are due at our pre-op class. Our feeling is that if the patient has pre-paid for the service and is financially vested, they will be more likely to come to the follow up appts. Occasionally, I have patients that have to work out a payment plan, but this is pretty seldom. Most of our patients have no problem paying for the fee. They receive paperwork stating all of the fees that they will incur when they leave the office after the initial surgical and nutritional consultation. SIGN UP FOR MY MONTHLY E-NEWSLETTER AT WWW.ROUNTREEDIETETICS.COM!