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As emergency department case manager, Janeice Garrison, RN, MSN, BC, sees herself as the "point guard" for the hospital in a large, mostly rural area where the population is growing by an average of 22.4% a year and the percentage of uninsured, undocumented, and homeless patients is increasing.
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By involving patients and family members in the treatment plan and discharge process before they are admitted to the hospital for treatment, the staff at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL, within a five-month period of time decreased length of stay by almost two days and achieved a 7% increase in the number of admissions involving hematology patients.
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Faced with a high census and backups in the emergency department, Bay Medical Center in Panama City, FL, created two discharge areas where patients who were waiting for transportation to home or a nursing home could wait, freeing up much-needed beds on the units.
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By analyzing claims data to assure that the hospital was reimbursed appropriately and aggressively appealing all denials and underpayments of claims, DCH Health System in Tuscaloosa, AL, was able to generate a 1.25% increase in net patient revenue.
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Hospitals are losing large amounts of money on extra and inappropriate diagnostic testing and procedures, as well as outpatient procedures performed in the inpatient setting because third-party payers frequently are denying the claims, says Brenda Keeling, RN, CPHQ, CPUR, of Patient Response, a Milburn, OK, health care consulting firm.
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Hospital reimbursement is being squeezed from all sides. In the proposed Inpatient Prospective Payment System rule for fiscal year 2010, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed slashing the Medicare reimbursement update to account for improvements in documentation and coding and limiting reimbursement for readmissions.
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You would think that going five years without an incident of wrong-site surgery would bring contentment to any surgery program. At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, however, leaders are constantly trying to improve, so they have incorporated a script, poster, and checklist into their surgery processes.
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Do you want to make changes needed to keep your patients happy, but unsure what needs to be changed? Ask them!
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Recent outbreaks of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) are a wake-up call to boost infection control practices. But they also underscore the prevalence of HCV and the continued occupational risk.
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The principal findings of a recent economic survey by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology include the following: