Hospital Access Management – November 1, 2014
November 1, 2014
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Portal doubled online collections, but access still answers questions
Payments made online have doubled over the past two years at Cincinnati (OH) Children’s Hospital Medical Center, reports Christopher Lah, senior director of revenue cycle customer service. “About 15.5% of total dollars collected went through the portal,” says Lah. “The portal is starting to have a significant impact on both our copay collections and other out-of-pocket expenses.” With 27,919 online payments made in 2014, $5.3 million was collected, with an average of $193 paid per transaction. -
Save big on per diem, OT costs by cross-training — Staff can cover almost any registration area
At Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in Glendale, WI, pre-registration staff members are cross-trained in the main registration area, the emergency department, and front desk walk-in registration, says Kim Gehl, manager of patient access in central scheduling and central precertification. -
Access areas staffed with these criteria in mind
At Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare in Glendale, WI, patient access managers use productivity data, accuracy, and cash collection goals as key metrics to ensure they’re staffing patient access areas appropriately. -
Give staff members working knowledge of the entire revenue cycle
At Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, patient access leaders developed training programs to allow front-line staff to have knowledge of all patient access areas. -
Make it less likely payer will request peer-to-peer — Closer working relationship with docs is needed
Even if patient access employees follow all the necessary steps to obtain an authorization for a procedure, the payer might still want to talk to another person before granting the authorization: the patient’s physician. -
These payer trends call for closer collaboration with physicians — Docs must dispute patient’s status
Some payers are changing their care management programs to reflect Medicare’s requirements, such as the “two-midnight” rule. This change affects patient access areas, says Pamela D. Scott, MBA, revenue cycle administrator at Genesis Health System in Davenport, IA. -
Find out if goals set for patient access staff need to be changed — Keep criteria patient-focused
Goals in patient access areas at Cincinnati (OH) Children’s Hospital Medical Center have three areas of focus: the patient’s and family’s satisfaction, finances, and compliance, says Michelle Gray, MHA, director of registration services. -
Unrealistic patient access goals? Morale will suffer -- Make expectations very clear
If goals are unrealistic, unclear, or outdated, patient access employees quickly will become unhappy, warns Craig Pergrem, senior director of revenue cycle, pre-service, and onsite access at Novant Health in Winston-Salem, NC. -
Patient has high out-of-pocket costs? Find out earlier! Move financial talk to front end
More patients have access to insurance coverage today, but they also have higher out-of-pocket responsibility. “Our greatest challenge is getting the information we need to verify healthcare benefits and coverage for their stay,” says Susan Kole, director of patient access at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, CT. -
Customer service isn’t just for patients: Reward access staff members at little or no cost
If one of your registrars was offered a little more money or better hours by another area of the hospital, would he or she find your patient access department impossible to leave? -
Handwritten notes can be weak link in your compliance with HIPAA
With all the talk about encryption and other high-tech ways to safeguard protected health information (PHI), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations still can be traced to the simplest task: jotting down notes about a patient on a piece of paper. -
Specify quick notification in vendor agreements
Business associate agreements are one of the tricky parts of complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) -
Errors by employees are at the root of most data breaches, but not the most costly
The two most common sources of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) breaches are unintended disclosure, such as misdirected emails and faxes (31%) and the physical loss of paper records (24%), which is particularly prevalent among healthcare organizations. -
5 ways to avoid a data breach
Most data breaches are fully preventable, and Beazley Breach Response (BBR) Services, an Atlanta company providing breach response insurance, offers these five ways to avoid them: -
Act expands breach notification requirements
Any healthcare organization with a presence in Florida will be affected by the Florida Information Protection Act of 2014 (FIPA), which expands the requirements on covered entities that acquire, maintain, store, or use personal information of Floridians.