All Entries Tagged With: "patient access"
Obama promises quality; Dunn Memorial already delivers
Barack Obama today in his inaugural speech talked about the need for better healthcare quality and lower costs. Dunn Memorial Hospital’s patient access team certainly delivers quality with its Medicare Secondary Payer (MSP) form policies.
The Bedford, IN, facility last year scored a 100% compliance when auditors visited the facility.
To see how, read the story in our Patient Access Advisor newsletter.
ED bedside registration
York (ME) Hospital finds bedside registration in the Emergency Department one of the most effective tools to ensure an accurate and compliant patient claim.
Pat Finnemore, CHAA, who works on the patient access team at the 11-bed ED facility, says bedside registration in the ED:
- Increases efficiency of workload for registrars
- Opens strong lines of communication between clinical and access teams
- Provides convenience for patients who do not want to be shuffled from place to place.
“We have not found this process to be more difficult at all,” Finnemore says. “We have an excellent working relationship with the clinical staff. Patients also like not being shuffled around. They can get in and get comfortable.”
Editor’s note: Next week, we talk to a provider who says ED bedside registration doesn’t work for her facility.
Our new patient access Web site
Welcome to the new and improved Patient Access Resource Center. We kept you, the patient access manager, in mind and changed to a blog format.
Why?
We want to make this more interactive and essentially turn the Web site over to you. You now have the forum to comment on the latest news, tips, and tools that make you a better manager and your facility’s revenue cycle better for it.
I know your challenges. I spoke to many of you at the NAHAM annual conference in Dallas in May. You told me your needs are evolving. You told me in our annual salary survey that you have more responsibilities than ever. You talked about the need to get more on the same page with patient financial services. You told me getting registrars to understand the lifespan of an error remains a challenge.
I like to think of this new site as landing space for those concerns. Only now, not only do you get management and training tools, newsletter stories, and the latest news, you can comment on them and share feedback with your colleagues.
The bottom line for your facility’s revenue cycle?
You’re only as good as your front end, and now’s the time to start getting better.
Let’s start today – who wants to go first?
– Dom Nicastro
Senior managing editor
Patient Access Resource Center
Winner in patient access
The Patient Access Resource Center received entries for patient access staff members who go above and beyond for their departments last year. Here is a snapshot look at one of the winners:
Leona Brown
Title: Insurance verification specialist
Location: University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, VA
Years at facility: In patient access since 1990, and another department, Health Services Foundation, prior to that for many years
About Leona: “She has been the consistent employee that works tirelessly on difficult worker’s comp issues and claims to ensure that the detail is captured correctly for the patient and the medical center,” says her manager, Debra Rappold, manager, patient access, University of Virginia Health System. “She has mentored many new hires, coached and trained on various forms of insurance and the proper system application.”
Delivering the Advanced Directive form
Advance Directive forms, to be completed by patients in case they are unable to make medical decisions for themselves, most often are presented by patient access staff members.
But any lack of communication among access, nursing, and case management staff members can lead to unnecessary confusion and headaches during compliance checks. Mandatory requirements from CMS, including the Fair Patient Billing Act, are on the minds of access managers lately. The goal is to comply and present Advance Directive forms in the most patient-friendly, transparent way.
Here are two tips from one patient access manager:
Just ask. The responsibility lies with patient access staff members to ask whether patients have or need a form. "My staff are informed during training on how to ask," says Vonda DeLorenzo, patient registration supervisor at Central Michigan Community Hospital in Mt. Pleasant. "For example: 'I see that you don't have an Advanced Directive for Healthcare. Would you like a copy?' "
Explain it like a “living will.” What if a patient asks about the form? DeLorenzo says they explain it as if it were a "living will," although Michigan doesn't recognize that term. "It is where you set up in advance your medical wishes should you become incapacitated and are unable to speak for yourself regarding your medical care," DeLorenzo adds. "You usually appoint an advocate who will act on your behalf, and [he or she has] to agree to act on your behalf. We try to keep it short and sweet and not spend too much time on it. Very few people are interested. You always get the one who wants to know if they are going to die today."
Crisis in the ER
Just how is the country’s emergency-room crisis affecting your patient access department? Surely, there are long waits and angry patients.
Recent national reports highlight the need for hospitals to improve their situations in the ER. We found one editorial from the Tampa Tribune that offers some ideas for improving the crisis.
About these benchmarking reports
Patient Access Advisor, the 12-page newsletter formerly published by HCPro, Inc., published its final edition in December 2008.
We produced benchmarking reports in PAA for patient access managers on salaries, registration accuracy rates, self-pay patients and hiring and personnel matters. Each report is a product of your concerns needs and wishes in order to make your front end and revenue cycle department better. For each report, we surveyed hundreds of revenue cycle managers.
We are pleased to help you apply these benchmark findings at your facility!
– Dom Nicastro
Senior managing editor
Patient Access Resource Center
Patient Access Advisor, August, 2008
Check out the August 2008 edition of Patient Access Advisor, which features:
- Four days and off you go: a training program for new registrars
- Assess your registration processes
- Show, don’t tell: look at your quality assurance manually
- Six tips for quality control auditing
- PAA names Albany access manager to advisory board
Training tool: Registration assessment test
The following are sample questions from the assessment test new patient access staff members at Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital take after their four-day training program. The answers to each question are bolded.
Q. True or False. All Medicare supplement plan codes begin with 150
Q. True or False. All Medicare supplement plan codes begin with 150 A. True. This question is part of Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital’s training assessment quiz for new patient access representatives.