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News: A 66-year-old man presented to the hospital with symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. The man was placed on an IV and put in bed. The patient later attempted to get out of bed, but he fell down and struck his head on the floor. The hospital settled with the man for $500,000.
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The emergency department (ED) is perhaps the worst hospital unit in which to have strangers working together, says Dan Sullivan, MD, FACEP, JD, president and CEO of The Sullivan Group, a risk and safety consulting group in Oakbrook Terrace, IL, and an associate professor of emergency medicine at Cook County Hospital/Rush Medical College in Chicago.
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In August 2011, emergency department (ED) registrars at University of Mississippi Health Care in Jackson were trained on patient estimator software, which increased collections by 124% compared to the previous year, while admissions areas saw a 319% increase.
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Mistakes in registration, such as missing information, are discovered by frequent audits done by managers at Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, WI. These become part of the employee's annual evaluation.
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Payer requirements are the single most challenging area in training of patient access staff, according to Colette Lasack, MBA, executive director of revenue cycle at Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, WI.
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When Michelle M. Mohrbach, CHAM, became manager of patient access and central scheduling at Blanchard Valley Health System in Findlay, OH, new hires typically "shadowed" another registrar for a short time before going out on their own. This approach has changed dramatically.
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After a price estimator system was implemented at St. Joseph East in Lexington, KY, the need for one-on-one training quickly became apparent, says Stephanie Stamper, patient access coordinator.
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Previously, registration errors were sent to individual access employees, who were required to correct the error, says Stacey Bodenstein, general manager of admitting and registration at TriHealth in Cincinnati, OH. However, corrections weren't being made quickly enough due to varying shifts.
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The implementation of a new health information system at TriHealth in Cincinnati, OH, "has given has given us an amazing opportunity to look very closely at all of our processes," says Stacey Bodenstein, general manager of admitting and registration.
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Training of new hires has become much more comprehensive, due to the expanded patient access role, according to Betsy Keating, interim patient access director at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, IL. Keating is a senior consulting manager at Chadds Ford, PA-based IMA Consulting, which provides revenue cycle services for the healthcare industry.
