Definition of Encounter

90.6 - Definition of Encounter (Rev. 1, 10-01-03) HO-350F The term “encounter” means a direct personal contact in the hospital between a patient and a physician, or other person who is authorized by State law and, if applicable, by hospital staff bylaws to order or furnish services for diagnosis or treatment of the patient. Direct personal contact does not include telephone contacts between a patient and physician. Nor is the compensation arrangement between the physician and the hospital relevant to whether an encounter has occurred. Patients will be treated as hospital outpatients for purposes of billing for certain diagnostic services that are ordered during or as a result of an encounter that occurred while such patients are in an outpatient status at the hospital. If a Medicare outpatient is referred to another provider or supplier for further diagnostic testing or other diagnostic services as a result of an encounter that occurs in this hospital, the hospital is responsible for arranging with the other entity for the furnishing of services. Hospitals are not required to verify that all ordered services are furnished but only to assure that, when it is necessary to refer a patient to an outside entity, the referral is made to a provider or supplier with which the referring hospital an arrangement. This requirement is necessary to assure that billing for services that are furnished is processed through the servicing hospital. When a patient has follow-up visits with a physician in the hospital following an initial encounter, each subsequent visit to the physician will be treated as a separate encounter for billing.