Compliance tool kit for do-it-yourselfers
Compliance tool kit for do-it-yourselfers
AHA service helps hospitals and home care
[Editor’s note: Next month, Hospital Home Health will provide a closer look at compliance programs, including how to develop your own guidelines for handling surprise inspections.]
As hospital-affiliated agency directors know only too well, putting together a formal compliance plan can be expensive, but in these days of Medicare scrutiny, can your agency or parent hospital afford to be without one?
An alternative to hiring your own consultant to develop a voluntary plan might be a product developed by the Chicago-based American Hospital Association, in conjunction with consultants Coopers & Lybrand. The product, launched last November, is a do-it-yourself compliance kit for hospitals, which will contain a home care component in the near future, says Tim Burke, managing director of Market Development for AHA Insurance Resource Inc., a subsidiary of AHA, also located in Chicago.
"The service is designed to be a tool kit," says Burke, who designed the product along with Associates at Insurance Resource. "It’s meant to be a compliance process manual. It’s a how-to program."
Burke explains that hospital subscribers will be able to access compliance information through the Internet on the AHA Web site (www.aha.org). And one of the first links being planned is information on home care compliance.
"After a subscriber has implemented the compliance manual," Burke says, "they can go to the Web site and locate information on home health. That’s one of the first enhancements on the table for us to focus on. Home health is big right now."
A hospital-affiliated director will be able to inquire about compliance issues peculiar to home health, Burke says. "We will put them in contact with one of our compliance experts who will work with them on how to build a compliance plan."
The compliance service is based on the information contained in the draft version of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) Model Compliance Plan for Hospitals, the final version of which is due out this month.
"This service is one way to help [hospitals] put in place the safeguards and processes for navigating successfully through the payment system. Complying with a system as complicated as Medicare can result in honest mistakes, not intentional fraud," AHA president Dick Davidson said in a statement. "The compliance package is being made available at a time when the federal government has changed its approach to compliance, now presuming that every hospital billing error is a fraudulent claim."
The Health Care Compliance Service offers the following tools as part of a complete do-it-yourself compliance program:
• Framework for Compliance guide and video.
The guide and video focus on the importance of adopting consistent standards with the framework of a compliance plan.
• Compliance manual/workbook.
The workbook contains checklists, assessment tools, and step-by-step action items to guide users through all phases of the compliance plan project.
• Information help line.
The toll-free phone line offers a team of national compliance experts to answer subscribers’ questions.
• Compliance Web site.
Located on the AHA’s own Web site, www.aha.org, the site offers access to time- sensitive information about compliance issues.
• Optional consulting support.
Coopers & Lybrand consultants will be available to subscribers who select this part of the service.
The AHA compliance service is marketed under the association’ s subsidiary, AHA Insurance Resource Inc.
The Framework for Compliance guide and video are free, says AHA spokesperson Dione Dougal. There are two options for subscribing to the service, which includes the manual/workbook, access to the help line, and the Web site.
Option one is a one-time fee of $3,500 for AHA members, $7,000 for non-members. Under this option, each additional copy of the manual/ workbook costs $350 for members ($700 for non-members). Subsequent annual subscriptions to the service cost $500 for AHA members ($1,000 for non-members).
Option two requires a three-year commitment of $1,500 per year for members ($2,500 for non-members). After the third year, annual subscription cost is the same as option one.
[Editor s note: For more information call (800) 242-4677. To subscribe to the AHA Health Care Compliance Service, please call (800) AHA-2626.]
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.