Incident-to billing for pharmacists

Abstract

The inclusion of pharmacists on care teams has been shown to improve clinical and economic health outcomes. However, a significant barrier to the widespread incorporation of pharmacists into care teams is the ability to financially support the salary of the pharmacist. A mechanism to improve the ability of pharmacists to generate clinical revenue already exists in the form of incident-to billing, although there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the criteria for incident-to billing and specifically how pharmacists can use this model to capture revenue for clinical services. In this article, we discuss incident-to billing criteria as it pertains to outpatient clinics, common misconceptions related to incident-to billing, and how clinical pharmacists may use this mechanism to generate revenue for the clinical services they provide.