Place-of-service codes explain why one appointment produced two bills. Look up a code and see what it means for what you were charged.
If you have ever been billed twice for one appointment — once by the doctor and once by the hospital — the place-of-service code is where that shows up. A visit coded 11 (office) carries one charge. The identical visit coded 22 (on-campus outpatient hospital) carries a professional fee plus a facility fee, because the hospital is billing for the room as well as the clinician.
Nothing about your care changed. The building's billing status did. This is entirely legal and extremely common after a hospital acquires a physician practice, and it is one of the larger avoidable costs in outpatient care — the same service in setting 11 or 24 frequently costs a fraction of what it costs in setting 22.
Always ask for the itemised bill. The summary statement shows totals; the itemised version shows each code, each unit, and each charge, and that is where errors are visible. Three things are worth checking on every line:
Units. A quantity of 10 where one was delivered is a routine data-entry error and an expensive one.
Dates. Charges dated outside your actual stay, or duplicated across two dates, are common after a transfer between departments.
Things that did not happen. Cancelled tests, medications refused, a room you were never moved into. These do appear.
VerifyDoc reads your whole itemised bill — every code, every unit, every charge — and flags what does not add up, in plain English, with the reason.
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