All Entries in the "healthcare news" Category
Joint Commission posts 2010 prepublication standards
It’s that time of year. The Joint Commission posted its 2010 prepublication standards on its Web site earlier this week. Click here to access them.
Check back with the Credentialing Resource Center blog to find out how the updates will affect your medical staff services department.
FSMB welcomes new president and CEO
The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) announced yesterday that Humayun J. Chaudhry, D.O., M.S., FACP, FACOI, will lead the organization as its new president and CEO beginning in October.
He currently serves as Commissioner and Chief Executive Officer of the Suffolk County, N.Y., Department of Health Services, a Clinical Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and an Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology (NYIT).
Many physicians in favor of public option
I just read about a recent study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to gauge physician’s reactions to healthcare reform. According to the study, which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, 63% of physicians support some type of government-backed healthcare reform. Check out this article from United Press International.
I’d love to hear what physicians out there think–and why!
Blog report: AMA’s president launches new blog
“On the Road with Dr. Rohack” is the new blog AMA’s president J. James Rohack, MD started earlier this week.
Get the inside scoop on this blog by reading the Health Leaders Media article, “AMA President Dives into Blogosphere.”
You can find Rohack’s latest posts at http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/health-system-reform/blog.shtml.
Alert patients to HIPAA violations, says new regulation
All hospital workers—including MSPs and medical staff professionals—need to adhere to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) guidelines. The government recently updated these guidelines to require healthcare providers to notify patients if their health information was breached.
Medical staffs should update their polices as needed to reflect these changes.
According to a press release: “The regulations, developed by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), require health care providers and other HIPAA covered entities to promptly notify affected individuals of a breach, as well as the HHS Secretary and the media in cases where a breach affects more than 500 individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals will be reported to the HHS Secretary on an annual basis. The regulations also require business associates of covered entities to notify the covered entity of breaches at or by the business associate.”
Rural and CAH sessions at CRC Symposium
To improve next year’s Credentialing Resource Center Symposium we need to hear from you!
Can you please take a moment out of your day to answer these four quick questions we have about your interest in rural and critical access hospitals (CAH)?
Click this link to answer the questions: www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229JF5HHZC7
Nurses face felony charges after reporting doctor to the Texas Medical Board
Anne Mitchell, RN and Vicki Galle, RN, two nurses from West Texas, tried reporting a physician’s problem behavior through designated hospital channels. When their complaints fell on deaf ears, they took the next step and anonymously reported the physician to the Texas Medical Board.
If you’re a follower of Rita Schwab’s Supporting Safer Healthcare blog you already know what happened next – the medical board notified the physician of its investigation. In turn, the physician contacted the local sheriff to file a harassment report. The sheriff’s investigation led to third degree felony charges for the nurses.
The Texas Medical Board and the Texas Nurses Association both support the nurses’ actions, but that hasn’t stopped the sheriff’s office’s investigation.
Newspaper columnists have also come out in support of the nurses, saying the state’s whistleblower laws should offer more protection.
What do you think of the case? Do you think a similar situation could occur within your medical staff?
Medversant sues Morrisey Associates over credentialing patent
Medversant Technologies LLC is taking Morrisey Associates to court over what they see as a patent infringement of their credentialing software.
Medversant unveiled its patented product earlier this year with a press release explaining: “The ‘Electronic Credentials Verification and Management System’ (U.S. Patent 7,529,682) is a foundational patent for the company and provides for a system for storing, continually verifying, and retrieving credentials records in a global network environment.”
The marketing around Morrisey’s MSO for the Web (MSOW) product seems a little too similar for comfort to Medversant.
“It is evident from their advertising that they are marketing for sale a product that is consistent with our AutoVerify [which uses the patented product] process, which is utilized by health plans, hospitals, state Medicaid programs and other healthcare organizations to continuously credential the providers who provide healthcare services,” Philip Collias, JD, general counsel for Medversant said in a Cloud Computing Journal article.
The United States District Court for the Central District of California will hear the case. Keep reading the Credentialing Resource Center blog for more updates about the case and its impact for medical staff services departments.
Credentialing the Surgeon General
Dr. Regina Benjamin was nominated by President Obama today for the post of U.S. Surgeon General. Officially, the Office of the Surgeon General is part of the Office of Public Health and Science. Unofficially, the person in that role is known as the nation’s doctor.
Being the nation’s doctor is a pretty hefty title to carry. Chances are Benjamin didn’t have to fill out a typically credentialing application before winning the nomination, but if she did, she’d have some impressive credentials to list. She is past president of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 2008, and rebuilt the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic, which she founded, three times after it was destroyed by hurricanes and floods.
If you were responsible for credentialing a surgeon general, what are some key elements you’d like to see on his or her application?
Reader responses: How dire is our healthcare crisis?
In a recent issue of the Credentialing Resource Center Connection email newsletter we asked MSPs to share with us their thoughts about our nation’s so-called broken healthcare system.
Here are a few of the anonymous responses from in-the-trenches MSPs. Feel free to leave your own opinion in the comment box at the end of the post.
“If all I did in my position at the hospital were my duties as Medical Staff Coordinator, I would probably wonder what kind of “crisis” is being discussed.
However, I also work in risk management and am the first person contacted by patients with concerns and complaints. I find from my many conversations with patients, that many have really poor and confusing insurance coverage, that many are putting off vital healthcare due to the expense, and that our ED is becoming a substitute for the PCP’s office. I speak daily with tearful and frightened individuals who feel they have nowhere to turn, and who are fearful of ever-mounting personal medical debt.
Our hospital is located in a rural environment. We have many Medicare patients, and a good percentage of the younger ones are uninsured or under-insured, as we do not have many large employers in our community that provide employee health insurance coverage. If we are at all typical, we do indeed have a “crisis”.”
