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Hospitals continue to accelerate their use of health information technology, with 68% reporting that electronic health records had been fully or partially implemented as of fall 2006, according to the American Hospital Association's second annual survey of hospital health IT use.
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When it comes to quality assurance in the customer service arena, those patient satisfaction surveys that have become ubiquitous in health care may not be providing accurate feedback, suggests Michael Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, a manager with Besler Consulting in Princeton, NJ.
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The clinical expertise of case management is increasingly being used in the access process, and in the next five years many of the functions of the two disciplines will be consolidated.
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A newly formed team of "revenue managers" is working to link billing and clinical departments, providers, access personnel, and insurance payers and help resolve issues that otherwise could result in decreased income at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
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All the community hospitals in the state of Washington are voluntarily expanding their financial assistance guidelines in what is being described as one of the more far-reaching policies of its kind in the United States.
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The latest initiative by the Seattle-based Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) and its 97 member hospitals is a web site that provides hospital-specific price and quality information.
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A one-word change in the Conditions of Participation (CoP) regulations that went into effect Jan. 26, 2007, will make a dramatic difference in compliance requirements for Medicare and EMTALA.
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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released guidance to help organizations comply with HIPAA security standards; and Health care providers can receive free on-line information about the National Provider Identifier (NPI) in the form of on-demand audio and video web casts.
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At Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital in Yakima, WA, the implementation of new state-wide financial assistance guidelines "wasn't really that big of a change."
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Patient access directors seeking to hire and retain good employees can improve their recruiting ability by looking outside the methods traditionally used by the health care industry.
