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Care Settings & Facilities

Birth Center

A birth center is a freestanding, home-like facility staffed largely by midwives that offers low-intervention childbirth care for low-risk pregnancies. As an outpatient care setting distinct from hospitals, it bills facility and professional services and maintains transfer arrangements for complications.

What is a birth center?

A birth center is a freestanding, home-like facility, typically staffed largely by midwives, that provides low-intervention childbirth care for people with low-risk pregnancies. It is designed as an alternative to hospital-based delivery for those who are appropriate candidates.

Care emphasizes a natural, supportive birth experience while maintaining clinical safeguards. Birth centers maintain arrangements to transfer patients to a hospital if complications arise or risk increases.

How does a birth center fit into care settings and billing?

As an outpatient care setting distinct from a hospital, a birth center occupies its own place among facilities and serves a defined, lower-risk population. Its scope and staffing model set it apart from inpatient labor and delivery units.

For billing, a birth center may submit both facility and professional service charges associated with the care it provides. Its transfer relationships and risk criteria are integral to how it operates safely within the broader system.

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