Background:
To comply with the 80‐hour workweek restrictions in 2004, the OB‐GYN department at a teaching hospital turned over the routine circumcision program to the pediatric hospitalist group. Taking over the program required a dedicated training program at no additional cost.
Purpose:
The goal of the study was to examine the income associated with having the pediatric hospitalist service become the service performing most newborn circumcisions.
Description:
Collections for the pediatric hospitalist service in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 were reviewed, as were professional fee billing records and collection data for all newborn boys undergoing routine circumcision by pediatric hospitalists between September 2004 and August 2006. During the first 2 years of the program, the hospitalists performed 1647 circumcisions, beginning 3 months into fiscal year 2005. In that year professional revenue for a 7 full‐time‐equivalent (FTE) hospitalist team was $680,000, of which $141,000 (21%) came from newborn circumcisions. In the second fiscal year, a 7.5 FTE team collected $957,000 from all patient care sources, of which $207,000 (22%) came from the circumcision program.
Conclusions:
Newborn circumcision is a way for a hospitalist program to gain significant professional fee income.
Author Disclosure:
K. J. Pituch, None.