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Legal concerns addressed regarding JCAHO review; Medicaid spending slows, first time in seven years; EMTALA sourcebook cuts through new regs
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The privacy regulations enacted as part of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) have caused some unforeseen complications for hospitals trying to ensure patient safety and improve communication between providers and patients, say health care professionals and legal experts.
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Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights director Richard Campanelli says that many covered entities have done a good job of coming into compliance with the HIPAA privacy requirements that took effect in April, although there remain some misunderstandings about the requirements that need to be cleared up.
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A process begun four years ago when the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston took a hard look at pending discharges has led to a cutting-edge bed management program and a best practice designation from two national benchmarking organizations.
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A new approach to unscheduled admissions that started as a trial with the goal of boosting morale and improving nurse retention has become much more than that.
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Not only do the verification and quality services personnel at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem perform one of the most thorough registration quality checks around, theyve been doing it for 12 years.
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Tara Tinsley, CHAM, access supervisor and department trainer in the emergency department at Childrens Health Center in Birmingham, AL, shares her experience with Hospital Access Management in response to a request for information on ED cash collection practices in the May 2003 issue by Lori Judge, MS, HAS, director of patient financial services at St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, KY.
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Its been clear for a while that patient access managers could increase their marketability by beefing up their business office and patient accounting experience. But the very latest trend appears to be toward hiring a triple threat someone who also has a background in medical records.
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At the Seventh HIPAA Summit held in Baltimore in mid-September, Dr. HIPAA former Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services executive William Braithwaite said that while Transactions and Code Sets testing should have started in April at the latest, vendors should have provided software to all their clients and completed testing, clearinghouses should have finished testing for all customers, and health plans should have finished testing all transactions with providers and clearinghouses, the reality was that much of the testing still was being done and some entities hadnt yet started.
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With surveys indicating that the required Oct. 16 compliance with transaction and code sets HIPAA requirements would be spotty at best, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has drawn industry support for deciding to implement its contingency plan and accept legacy claims for an undetermined period of time while efforts toward full compliance continue.
