If you are hospitalized on December 31st and released a few days into the following year, how is the deductible applied?

Question

I was hospitalized on December 31st after a surgery that was done that same day. Now it is looking like I'll be staying in the hospital at least another day or two for recovery into the new year.
I'm curious as to how the hospital stay will be applied to my deductible, because I had already met my out of pocket maximum and deductible for 2020, which resets January 1st.
When a hospital stay crosses into a new deductible period do they count the whole stay in the year you were admitted, the whole stay in the year you were discharged, or split it up across the years?  The third option seems the most logical, but I doubt the hospital would submit a separate claim for each year for the same stay.
Any insurance insiders know what will happen in this situation?

TTT · Answer

It depends on your insurance policy.
I just asked my wife who works in utilization management at a hospital. She deals mostly with Medicare and Medicare replacement plans, and in those cases it's based on admission date, even if it spans a new year, and even if it spans across different policies (the active policy on the admission date covers the entire hospital stay).
If you have a commercial policy it varies, and it depends on the insurance policy, so you'd have to check with them to confirm. I have heard stories of mother's having babies on New Years Eve and subsequently maxing out both year's deductibles. Hopefully this doesn't happen to you. Good luck.

If you are hospitalized on December 31st and released a few days into the following year, how is the deductible applied?

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