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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.
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Since beginning a "financial advocacy initiative," Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago has seen nearly a 160% increase in its point-of-service (POS) collections.
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A 56-year-old man with complaints of impaired balance and light headedness presented to his local hospital. A resident and attending radiologist interpreted the man's CT scan and read the scan to show old lesions. A physician assistant at the hospital diagnosed the man with vertigo and discharged him with medication. As the symptoms became more severe, the man approached his primary care physician, who completed a more thorough workup.
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When it comes to measuring patient safety, hospitals tend to receive good scores for teamwork and education, but there still is considerable room for improvement with handoffs and other concerns.
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When helping to vet a proposed joint venture, watch for these red flags that government regulators have said will receive their attention, suggests Brandy L. Rea, JD, an attorney with the law firm of Lathrop & Gage in Overland Park, KS:
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The Office of Inspector General (OIG) stated in its recent opinion that it has "longstanding concerns" about joint venture arrangements between a party that is in a position to refer patients to receive certain items or services and a party that is already in the business of providing such items or services, explains Brandy L. Rea, JD, an attorney with the law firm of Lathrop & Gage in Overland Park, KS.
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There are ways to minimize labeling errors.
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A project designed to analyze labeling errors and devise solutions resulted in a 37% decrease in errors across nine hospitals in Pennsylvania.
