Billing errors
The same X-ray on two bills
Professional and facility charges are separate claims, and sometimes the same service appears on both.
For an emergency or outpatient procedure, you can legitimately receive two bills: one for the clinician and one for the facility. That is normal. What is not normal is the same imaging appearing on both without explanation.
In our case the itemized statement for an ER visit listed hand and finger X-ray codes on both the professional side and the facility side, alongside the procedure and injection codes. That overlap was the argument we used to ask a supervisor to write off the remaining balance.
How to check it yourself
- Get the itemized bill for both sides.
- Make a table: date, code, plain-English description, units, amount.
- Look for the same or similar imaging on both bills, and for the same code twice on one bill.
- Ask the provider to explain any line you cannot place against the EOB or your records.
The honest caveat
We used that overlap as leverage and a supervisor approved a write-off by phone. We never formally proved a coding error, and we never got it in writing. So we do not get to tell you that the codes were wrong. We can tell you it was worth asking about, with one specific argument, and that it moved.