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More than ever, patient access staff are being challenged to step into a new role that of financial counselor. Patients have more complex questions and needs, and are turning to front-line staff for answers.
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The below proposal was submitted by John E. Kivimaki, director of patient accounts at Mary Rutan Hospital in Bellefontaine, OH, to identify areas in the revenue cycle where losses could be reduced by focusing on upfront efforts. It was accepted by the hospital's administration, and implementation is underway.
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If hospitals don't get it by now, then they're not reading the writing on the wall. Quality will increasingly affect hospitals' financial welfare.
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The perspective of Laura Avakian's book "Helping physicians become great managers and leaders: Strategies that work" is from a human resources professional. And that is because Avakian worked as vice president of human resources in health care for about 25 years at Beth Israel Deaconess and MIT.
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You probably remember the days when nurse-to-nurse shift reports involved a nurse and a voice recorder. "There would be a lot of people coming in and people going and a lot of chaos.
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About 80% of serious medical errors involve problems in hand-off communication, says Klaus Nether, project leader with The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Health Care, who has a black belt in Six Sigma.
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The recent report from the Office of the Inspector "Adverse Events in Hospitals: National Incidence Among Medicare Beneficiaries" recommends that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) focus on the Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI) Condition of Participations in its survey and certification processes.
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Just as it standardized clinician-to-clinician hand-offs, Kaiser Permanente recognized the importance of the hand-off for the patient from hospital to home.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), on the march to value-based purchasing and tying quality care to reimbursement levels, certainly will be requiring more and more from hospitals.
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If you haven't yet incorporated metrics into your risk management program, you should begin immediately, because the use of metrics will drive much of what happens in the field in coming years, say risk managers and other experts. Risk managers who are using metrics may be ahead of the curve, but still need to ensure they are getting the most out of them.