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If a registrar complains to Kathleen Bowles, LSW, patient access supervisor at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, she begins by asking these questions: When did the incident take place? What occurred? Who was involved? What was the outcome of the situation?
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In a single month, registrars at Trinity Regional Health System in Rock Island, IL, were able to obtain disability coverage for five patients with a total of $450,000 in charges, and they were able to obtain Medicaid coverage for 104 patients who had received a total of $100,000 in services.
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Smoothing" occupancy over the course of a week can protect patients from crowded conditions, according to a study involving 39 children's hospitals during 2007.1 Researchers compared weekday versus weekend occupancy to determine just how much "smoothing" can reduce inpatient crowding.
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Patient identification errors continue to plague the healthcare industry despite years of efforts to eradicate this potentially disastrous problem. Understanding why patients and specimens are misidentified is key to reducing or eliminating errors, and risk managers can make progress by focusing on the human behavioral components of healthcare work.
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Barcoded wristbands can greatly reduce the opportunity for patient identification errors, says David Grant, RPh, MBA, vice president of pharmacy and clinical process improvement at Summit Health in Chambersburg, PA.
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The ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) recently issued a warning about a patient safety issue involving cardiac monitoring of incorrect patients. The issue was brought to ECRI Institute PSO's attention in its analysis of reports submitted by participating healthcare providers.
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Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles will have to pay almost $4.7 million to a surgeon who claims the hospital retaliated against him for blowing the whistle on unsafe practices in his department, unless the hospital manages to have the award overturned. The hospital already has spent as much as $1 million to appeal the arbitration decision, according to the informed estimate of the plaintiff's attorney.
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Court records indicate that Cedars-Sinai recruited Hrayr K. Shahinian, MD, to establish and direct its skull-base surgery program in 1996. The doctor's experience at the hospital was rocky from the start, says his attorney Robert C. Baker, JD, a partner with the law firm of Baker, Keener & Nahra in Los Angeles.
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In challenging the arbitration award of $4.7 million to a surgeon whose privileges were restricted, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles alleges that the doctor's competence was in doubt.
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The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health & Human Services has clarified when certain health care joint venture arrangements might be problematic and in violation of federal health care statutes and regulations.
