Q&A: Creating a chargemaster maintenance team

Q: It's been recommended that we develop a chargemaster maintenance team. What departments and roles should be part of this team? Who should lead it?

A: Many hospitals have established a chargemaster maintenance team that may (but does not have to) be led by the chargemaster coordinator. Typically, this team has key revenue cycle staff from patient access, health information management (HIM)/coding, and patient financial services as well as compliance. Electronic medical record (EMR) informatics staff may also be needed on the team to describe the documentation and charge capture triggers that need to be built into the EMR for the charge additions and changes. Charge inactivations may also need to be implemented in the EMR portion of the system in addition to the chargemaster itself.

For more information, see The Chargemaster Essentials Toolkit, Second Edition.