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U.S. hospitals provided $24.9 billion in uncompensated care in 2003, up from $22.3 billion in 2002, according to the latest American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals.
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A survey of providers, health plans, patient representatives, and others conducted by Congress General Accounting Office found providers and health plans believe that implementation of the HIPAA privacy rule went more smoothly than expected in its first year,
but that two provisions of the rule are unnecessarily burdensome.
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What used to be a fairly routine occurrence for many health care providers supplying copies of patient medical records on request is becoming a major issue under HIPAA because of questions about how much can be charged for a copy of the record and the service under the HIPAA privacy rule and various state laws.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has issued the first in a projected series of seven papers to provide guidance for covered entities.
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An authorization system recently implemented at the University Hospital of Arkansas in Little Rock is on track to streamline the pre-certification process and reduce payer denials, explains the director of hospital admissions.
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Palmetto Health employed a multifaceted approach to educating registrars when the Columbia, SC-based organization undertook an ambitious point-of-service (collection project in 2002.
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When the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center-Presbyterian in Philadelphia transformed its outpatient registration staff into three teams, each with a specific task, the benefits were apparent immediately, says the medical center's business administrator for patient access.
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Although few patients have taken advantage of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act privacy rule that allows them to amend their medical records, those numbers will increase dramatically as people gain confidence in owning their health care data, predicts a management consultant with the Dearborn, MI-based health information management division of ACS Health Care Solutions.
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When Palmetto Health in Columbia, SC, decided to launch a major point-of-service collection effort almost three years ago, commitment came from the top down, and preparation was extensive, says the director of admissions and registration.
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As this months Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) security rule deadline arrives, overall compliance with the rule does not appear imminent, judging from a recent survey by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
