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Frequent news stories and headlines about the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights' (OCR) crackdown on covered entities that have reported data breaches or other privacy rule violations increase the importance of continually assessing compliance with privacy and security rules.
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Unlike the current privacy rule which identifies purposes that might be omitted from disclosure accounting reports, the proposed rule published on May 31, 2011, identifies those purposes for which disclosures must be tracked and reported.
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Compliance and regulatory officers have until Aug. 1 to comment on a proposed rule that includes a new accounting of disclosures provision that gives individuals the right to receive a report on who has electronically accessed their protected health information (PHI).
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If an individual receives an array of costly diagnostic tests in your emergency department and ends up being admitted, the patient's uninsured status doesn't necessarily mean the hospital can't receive payment for services provided.
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The results of a survey of registration staff at University Orthopaedic Center, part of Salt Lake City-based University of Utah Health Care, were a little surprising to managers.
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Do you overhear registrars making remarks such as "We were slammed this morning!" or "We don't have enough staff today?" You'll need to re-evaluate your staffing levels to be sure the department is providing optimal coverage and customer service, says Kathleen Bowles, LSW, patient access supervisor at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus.
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Suspected 'red flags' must be handled differently in the emergency department than other registration sites, according to Joyce L. Predmore, associate director of patient access services at Ohio State's University Hospital East in Columbus.
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If a worried and anxious patient or family member is kept waiting, it might help to convey the underlying reasons for delays in registration, treatment, or room placement, says Diane Manuel, director of patient access for admissions and the emergency department at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston Salem, NC.
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Some emergency department (ED) patients are destitute, drug-seeking, or have nowhere else to obtain care, and they might pass themselves off as others to obtain insurance coverage, says Marsha Kedigh, RN, MSM, director of admitting, emergency department registration, discharge station, and insurance management at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville.
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If you tell patients they owe their entire deductible of $2,000 for an inpatient procedure, and they know that $1,700 of the deductible already was met, your credibility and competence are suddenly in question.
