Hospital Access Management – September 1, 2008
September 1, 2008
View Issues
-
Employee morale: What can you do when you can't give them a raise?
When your average employee is making $12 an hour, you face distinct and unique challenges. -
What grade would your employees give you?
Michael S. Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, director of patient access services at Apollo Health Street and author of Staff Competency in Patient Access, offers this nugget of truth about management: "If employees feel you'll do anything for them, they'll do anything for you, regardless of pay scale." -
Self Regional adopts patient-friendly billing
Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, SC, decided it needed to do something about its billing statements. In response to consumer feedback and a year of planning, the hospital went live on July 21 with its "more friendly" billing system. -
Guest Column: Using incentives to push cash up-front collections
We have had a cash up-front program at Mary Rutan Hospital since 1993. Since education is one of the keys to successful up-front collections for both patients and staff we have developed many training aids. -
ED's nonemergent patients must pay first or be referred
Under a new policy instituted in May 2008, patients in the ED at Metro Health Medical Center in Cleveland who have minor ailments must now pay part of their bill before being treated or be referred to one of MetroHealth's 16 clinics in the area. They are guaranteed an appointment within 72 hours. -
ED staff conduct careful research
The ED at Metro Health Medical Center in Cleveland began considering a new policy for patients with minor ailments about two years ago, recalls Charles L. Emerman, MD, chairman of the department of emergency medicine. "Our ED was designed for 100,000 patients a year, and it had become apparent we were going to hit that fairly quickly," he explains. -
Non-English speakers present special problem
While a recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine showed that English-speaking adults often have difficulty understanding physicians' instructions, patients who don't understand English present an additional challenge for ED managers.