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President Obama has signed the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (H.R. 4302) into law. This law marks the 17th time Congress delayed the cuts to physician reimbursements established with the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) under Medicare. The bill delays a 24% cut to the payments.
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Propensity to pay software can help determine a patients ability to pay, but few patient access areas use this technology.
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While rounding in an outpatient registration area at Elmhurst (IL) Memorial Healthcare, registration supervisor Gloria Vargas-Gonzalez saw that only one registrar was working, despite many patients waiting to be registered.
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Posting collection scores on a board in patient access areas increased upfront collections at Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, TN, by 30%.
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Standardized registration processes decrease claims denials and increase success with cross-training, according to patient access leaders. Eligibility denials decreased by 14% each quarter in the last fiscal year at UK Healthcare.
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By spending about an hour rounding in registration areas, patient access leaders can resolve many staff concerns and boost morale. By rounding, managers can do the following:
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Staff members at provider offices often think, wrongly, that the hospital is responsible for obtaining or denying authorizations.
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In a just-released report, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that outpatient surgical procedures that do not pose significant risk to patients performed in ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) have saved Medicare more than $1 billion in each of the last several years.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced that it will delay implementation of the new quality reporting measure ASC-11, Cataracts: Improvement in Patients Visual Function within 90 Days Following Cataract Surgery, until Jan. 1, 2015, according to the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association (ASCA).
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With the help of personalized recorded discharge information and educational videos available to patients by telephone or computer, Cullman (AL) Regional Hospital has reduced 30-day readmissions by 15% and increased scores on the discharge section of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) by 63%.
