Typical Billing Positions

The Tardoc billing system

Tardoc is the current Swiss national fee schedule for outpatient medical services. It replaced the former Tarmed system, which was in use from 2004 to 2025. Every medical act — a consultation, an injection, an ECG, a blood draw — has a corresponding Tardoc code with an assigned point value. The point value is then multiplied by the canton-specific point value (Taxpunktwert) to arrive at the CHF cost. The basic structure is the same as the old Tarmed system.

Older invoices or some transitional practices may still show Tarmed codes. For details on the changeover, see the Tardoc article.

How Tardoc codes appear on your invoice

A typical outpatient GP invoice looks like this:

• 00.0010 — Consultation, first 5 minutes (GP consultation entry code)
• 00.0020 — Consultation, per additional 5 minutes (repeated for each additional 5-minute block)
• 00.0110 — Physical examination
• 00.2510 — Sick note (Arztzeugnis)
• 00.2530 — Medical report or letter
• 35.0010 — Simple blood draw (venepuncture)
• 17.0100 — Simple wound care

Each code appears with its point value and the resulting CHF amount. A 20-minute GP consultation with a physical examination, a blood draw, and a sick note might generate 5–7 billing positions and total CHF 120–220 depending on the canton.

The two components of Tardoc

Each Tardoc position has two components billed separately:

• AL (ärztliche Leistung / medical service): The doctor's work — time, cognitive effort, decision-making.
• TL (technische Leistung / technical service): Equipment, practice overhead, consumables.

Both components are combined on the final invoice and typically shown as a single total line per billing code. Understanding this split matters when you see separate line items for the same procedure — it is not double billing, it is the two components.

Common billing positions to know

Beyond consultations, here are positions you may see on specialist or hospital outpatient invoices:

• Laboratory: Blood tests are billed from the Analysenliste (AL) — a separate official list of covered laboratory analyses with fixed prices. Each test has its own position code (e.g. 1234 for TSH, 1001 for haematology panel).
• Radiology: Imaging studies (X-ray, ultrasound, MRI, CT) have specific codes. An abdominal ultrasound is a very different billing position from a chest X-ray.
• Drugs administered in clinic: Medications given in the practice (injections, infusions) are billed separately from the consultation. They appear on the Spezialitätenliste (SL) with their own codes and prices.
• Anaesthesia: If you have a procedure under anaesthesia, the anaesthetist bills separately from the surgeon — two separate invoices from the same visit.

What to do if a position looks wrong

Before contacting anyone, review the invoice against what actually happened at the appointment:

1. Compare the date and provider name — make sure this is for the right visit.
2. Check that the number of consultation time units is plausible (e.g. 4 × 5 minutes = 20 minutes is reasonable for a standard visit).
3. Check for any positions that do not correspond to anything you recall happening.
4. Note the diagnosis codes (ICD-10 codes appear on the bill) and verify they match your condition.

If you spot a discrepancy, call the clinic's billing office directly. Have the invoice and the code in question ready. Most practices have a dedicated billing contact (Abrechnungsabteilung). Errors are usually corrected promptly with a revised invoice.