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Hospital Access Management – June 1, 2015
June 1, 2015
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Patient access can give hospital a ‘leg up’ on the competition
Collections increased 19%, which was an additional $3.6 million, in 2014 compared to the previous year, and payment plans increased by 27%, which was an additional $2.8 million, after patient access leaders at Novant Health in Winston-Salem, NC, began giving price estimate letters to surgical patients prior to service.
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Posted prices aren’t enough: Patients want more sophisticated information on costs
Seattle-based Virginia Mason Health System recently implemented a Patient Cost Estimator service, available via phone, online, or in person, to anyone inquiring about scheduled or planned inpatient and outpatient medical procedures.
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Incorrect CPT codes lead to incorrect estimates and sometimes write-offs
If a procedure ends up being slightly different than it was expected to be when a price estimate was provided to a patient, this difference can cause major problems for patient access, the patient, and the hospital.
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$500K in revenue expected in first year of financial navigator program
A financial navigation program started in August 2014 already has increased revenue by $330,000 at Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, TN.
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Night, weekend staff overlooked — Registrars on off-shifts want pizza parties, face-to-face time
Several years ago, Shelita Russ, CHAM, director of patient access services at New Orleans-based Ochsner Baptist Medical Center and Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner (LA), held a pizza party to celebrate a departmental achievement: Her team had met its point-of-service collection goals for the quarter.
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Make it easy for off-shifts to attend staff meetings — Don’t settle for low turnout
Registrars who work night shifts in the emergency department and labor and delivery registration areas can’t attend 2 p.m. staff meetings at New Orleans-based Ochsner Baptist Medical Center and Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner. So supervisors give the night shift staff members their own meeting at 10:30 p.m. or 6:30 a.m.
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What do staff really think of leaders in patient access? Take survey results seriously
Patient access employees at Integris Health weren’t shy about letting their feelings be known regarding the department’s dress policy.
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Email surveys get quick response from members of patient access staff
When managers at OSF Healthcare System wanted the staff's' opinion, they got answers via an email survey.
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Paper, storage costs plummet with e-signatures: 60,000 pages no longer printed
More than 60,000 pieces of paper each month no longer need to be printed, copied, and stored in offsite record storage locations, due to electronic signatures being implemented in registration areas at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
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Patient ID ‘paramount’ to forming interoperable LHS
Patient identification has been called “paramount” to the formation of an interoperable Learning Health System (LHS). So says the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) and the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS).