Concept explainer

The charge master

Explains the charge master, the catalogue of billable items, and how each item defines what is charged and how it is described.

The charge master is the catalogue of billable items. Every item a hospital can charge for lives here once, and each item defines what is charged and how it is described on the bill. This page sets out what an item holds, how it carries its base price, and how a price change leaves earlier charges alone.

What an item defines

An item in the charge master carries a lean core of fields. Vault reads these when it raises a charge, and freezes the ones that price the line.

code string Required	A charge master code unique to the site.
name string Required	The description that reads on the bill.
category string Required	The bill category the item belongs to.
taxCode string Required	The service or goods tax code that sets how tax applies.
timing string Required	Whether the item is charged once or recurs, such as per day, per hour or per shift.
basePrice integer Required	The default price, ahead of any tariff or adjustment.
status string Required	Whether the item is active for charging.

Bill categories

Every item sits in one bill category. The category groups the item on the bill and drives how tax and payer caps apply to it.

Category	What it covers
Room	Bed and room charges, apportioned by the stay.
Consultation	A clinician's consultation fee.
Procedure	A performed procedure.
Investigation	A laboratory test or an imaging study.
Pharmacy	A dispensed drug.
Consumable	A consumed item or device.
Miscellaneous	Anything outside the categories above.

The price authority

The charge master is where price begins. When Vault raises a charge, it reads the base price from the item and freezes it on the charge at the service date. Every downstream price, a tariff tier, a package rate or a discount, works from that base.

The core stays lean. Attributes that apply to a subset of items, a statutory ceiling or a default clinical code, attach as policy rules by applicability rather than sitting on every item. The catalogue holds what an item is; the policy layer holds the rules that qualify it.

Effective dating

An item's price changes over time. A change closes the current version and opens a new one, so the catalogue keeps its full history. A charge already raised holds the version that was live on its service date, and the new price applies only to charges raised from then on.

A price change leaves raised charges alone

Editing an item's price opens a new version rather than overwriting the old one. A charge that was already raised keeps the price it froze, so a rate correction today leaves yesterday's bills exactly as they were.

Linked to the order catalogue

Each billable item ties to the item a clinician orders. The order catalogue in Forge carries the link to its charge master entry, so ordering an item and charging for it draw on one connected definition. A site loads its order lists and its finance masters together, in one bulk step, with a downloadable template and a row-level report of anything to correct.

The charge master list

Code

Item name