News Briefs
News Briefs
HCFA creates new technology APCs
The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) in Baltimore has created 11 new technology ambulatory payment classifications (APCs) applicable only to new technology devices (0987-0997). With the new APCs, HCFA wanted to differentiate between new technology services and devices, the agency says in its program memorandum (PM) A-00-61.
The PM also contains a list of long descriptors for drugs, biologicals, devices eligible for transitional pass-through payments, and for all items classified in "new technology" APCs under the outpatient prospective payment system. In addition, the PM also corrects C codes that were listed in Transmittal A-00-42. Here are the corrected C codes:
• old code: C1108, C1600, C1601;
• new code: C1810, C1850, C1851.
The PM also states that code C1005 (intraocular lens, Sensar Soft Acrylic Posterior Chamber IOL) could only be used to bill for pass-through payments for services beginning Aug. 1, 2000, through Sept. 30, 2000.
For a look at the entire PM, which was released Sept. 6, visit the Web site www.hcfa.gov. Click on "advanced search," then type the words "technology ambulatory payment classifications" into the search line.
Minnesota provider wins award for its Web site
Want to compare your Web site against the best on the Internet? Check out the site of Allina Health System of Minnetonka, MN (www.allina.com).
Allina won honors in October as the best Hospital System Web site and "Best of the Best" from the "Quest for the Best" Healthcare Provider Web Site Awards, sponsored by Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) in El Segundo, CA, and Modern Healthcare magazine.
Allina’s site won for its appearance, ease of navigation, health/wellness and clinical content, and comprehensive physician search function, the sponsors say. The Web site also was noted for its customizable home page, ability to submit health or billing questions on-line, on-line health risk assessments, and health "e-communities" for members with certain health concerns, such as diabetes or heart disease.
Other winners include the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, (www.mayo.edu), for the best Medical Group Web site, and Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, (www.swedish.org), for the best stand-alone hospital Web site.
More than 100 sites were judged
Earlier this year, the sponsors had invited hospital systems, stand-alone hospitals, and medical groups to nominate their sites for the awards. CSC used its proprietary Provider Web Assessment Tool to screen the more than 100 Web sites that were nominated. A panel of judges, representing a cross section of the industry, then reviewed the finalist sites and evaluated them on usability and clinical, administrative, and consumer user content and functions.
Finalists in the Hospital System category included Advocate Health Care, Oakbrook, IL (www.advocatehealth.com), and Intermountain Health Care, Salt Lake City (www.ihc.com). Stand-alone hospital finalists were the University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville (www.hsc.virginia.edu), and Yale-New Haven (CT) Hospital (www.ynhh.org). Medical Group finalists were The Cleveland Clinic (www.ccf.org), and The Iowa Clinic, Des Moines (www.iowaclinic.com).
Opportunity still exists for improvement, even among the finalist sites, says Arthur H. Spiegel, president of CSC’s Healthcare Group. For example, several of these sites are unable to make transactions or deliver data. This reflects what CSC found in a survey conducted earlier this year when the company applied its Web assessment tool to more than 500 provider sites.
Of the sites reviewed, the study showed that 45% offer only high-level, static information or "brochureware," with little to no user interaction capabilities. Only 1% of the sites CSC assessed let users interact with the host in at least two ways, such as on-line job applications and donations to hospital foundations.
Is HCFA secretly watching your Web site activity?
Every time you visit the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) Web site, the agency may be secretly collecting information on you, according to a study conducted by the government’s General Accounting Office (GAO).
In June, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) advised all federal agencies that they are not allowed to use cookies, the small text files that record information about an Internet user’s browsing habits when they visit a site, without approval from the agency head. If they are used, the OMB directive said, Web site visitors must be given "clear and conspicuous notice" of such use.
But the GAO found that 13 agencies were using cookies, although their formal Internet policy claimed they weren’t tracking the information, and the Web sites did not advise visitors that they were using the technology.
A congressional committee has expressed dismay over the findings, according to the Associated Press. "How can this administration talk about protecting privacy when its own agencies jeopardize some of the public’s most private information?" asked Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. Thompson’s committee has jurisdiction over the 1974 Privacy Act and other laws that direct the government’s privacy practices.
Besides HCFA, other agencies using cookies software were the U.S. Customs Service, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Bureau of Land Management, Federal Aviation Administration, Central Federal Lands Highway Division, the Energy Department’s Ames Laboratory, National Park Service, Office of Personnel Management, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and the U.S. Forest Service.
The study found all 13 agencies tracked consumers’ actions during their visits to the site, and some were employing "persistent" text files that could be read for years after the initial visit.
In addition, the U.S. Forest Service’s International Programs site was found to be using so-called "third-party cookies" that transmit the visitors’ activities to a private company that had been hired to compile reports for the agency.
For a look at the complete GAO Study, visit the Web site at www.epic.org/. Go to the bottom of the page and type the words "armey gao study" into the search line.
AHIMA approves an increase in member dues
The House of Delegates of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) voted in September to increase member dues, due to take effect in 2001.
Delegates approved a $35 increase in dues for active and associate members; student dues also will increase by $5. AHIMA states its membership would agree to the increase for the following reasons:
• Members receive $163 in benefits for $100 in dues; this reflects expanded service offerings including additional practice support, professional advocacy, and on-line resources.
• Product revenue and investment earnings have subsidized the shortfall between dues and service, but if these sources continue to make up the difference for basic member services, new investment will be increasingly difficult.
• Sixteen years have passed since the last dues increase for RHIAs in 1984. Since that time inflation has grown 67%.
• Market factors that influence investment return and prudent long-term planning prevent AHIMA from relying on investment earnings as a service subsidy.
Access job fair brings fast results
HR helps speed process
Facing a low unemployment rate in your geographical area at the same time you’re desperate for an infusion of new employees? Try hosting a job fair. That’s the solution John Woerly, RRA, MSA, CHAM, and his management team devised when the hospital where he served as director of patient intake needed to increase its access staff in a short period of time.
"We were creating new functions, establishing upfront collections and bedside registration, and were putting in an Advance Beneficiary Notice process," explains Woerly, now a manager with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young in Indianapolis. "We were going from a decentralized operation to a more centralized one, so we were going through rapid change, which created new positions."
To publicize the job fair, he says, Woerly advertised in the local newspaper and on the local radio station, announcing that applications would be taken between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on a particular day. "We had rooms set aside for keyboard skills assessment, human resources people there to get applications filled out, and our entire management team on-site."
Between patient intake and patient financial services, which joined in the effort, some 12 to 14 management personnel were present, he notes. All available job openings, with hours and necessary qualifications, were posted, and a four-person panel, including Woerly, screened each applicant.
"We asked about their background, areas of interest, and the hours they preferred," he says. "I might say, I don’t have these hours available within my department, but financial services does.’" Following the screening, another manager would conduct a more in-depth interview, he adds.
He had arranged in advance that human resources personnel would speed up drug testing/physicals and checking of references, "so instead of taking two weeks, it was done within the week."
As a result of the job fair, about 20 people were hired, he notes. "Before that, if we could hire three or four a month, we were doing well."
Access managers in a community with a medical school might want to try a recruitment strategy he used at another facility, Woerly suggests.
"When I was in a university setting, one of the [educational] criteria for medical students was that they work a semester in a hospital, preferably in a nonclinical setting," he says. "We hired four or five interns and residents and employed them in patient scheduling and preregistration."
Woerly says he discovered that these physician/registrars were extremely computer savvy and could be trained in about one-fourth the time of the average new hire. As an added benefit, "when they become full-fledged physicians, they’ll have a better appreciation of what [access personnel] do and how we do it," he points out.
Subscribe Now for Access
You have reached your article limit for the month. We hope you found our articles both enjoyable and insightful. For information on new subscriptions, product trials, alternative billing arrangements or group and site discounts please call 800-688-2421. We look forward to having you as a long-term member of the Relias Media community.