Linda Myrick
Defensible Healthcare Billing: Hospital-Based & Facility Services is a comprehensive, audit-focused guide designed to help healthcare professionals understand, construct, and defend facility claims in today’s complex reimbursement environment.This book presents facility billing not as a series of isolated tasks, but as a structured representation of the entire patient encounter. It explains how reimbursement is driven by the alignment of key elements, including patient status, site of service, documentation, charge capture, resource utilization, and coordination across departments. By emphasizing how these components interact, the book provides a clear framework for building claims that are both accurate and defensible under payer review.Written for coders, auditors, clinicians, revenue integrity professionals, compliance teams, and claims reviewers, this text focuses on real-world application rather than abstract rules. It examines how facility claims are evaluated during audits, why denials occur, and how patterns of billing behavior influence payer scrutiny. Readers gain insight into modern audit methodologies, including predictive analytics and pattern-based review strategies that increasingly define the 2026 reimbursement landscape.The book is intentionally code-agnostic, avoiding reliance on proprietary coding systems while instead focusing on decision-making, documentation alignment, and system-level consistency. This approach ensures that readers understand not just what to bill, but why claims succeed or fail during review. Through detailed explanations, structured frameworks, and practical case studies, the text highlights common failure points such as status misclassification, documentation misalignment, charge capture errors, and inconsistent departmental practices.In addition to foundational concepts, the book explores advanced topics including audit triggers, extrapolation risk, denial and recoupment processes, and strategies for appeal and defense. It also provides actionable guidance on building a defensible facility billing program, emphasizing proactive controls, cross-department coordination, and ongoing monitoring of billing patterns.Ultimately, this book equips professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to move beyond transactional billing and toward a defensible, system-driven approach. It bridges the gap between billing operations and audit reality, helping organizations reduce risk, improve compliance, and maintain financial integrity in an increasingly data-driven healthcare environment.
