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Hospital Access Management – January 1, 2013

January 1, 2013

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  • During hurricane, ‘no such thing as titles’ in patient access areas

    Patient access employees arrived for work before Hurricane Sandy in October knowing that their shift could last for 24 hours or more, reports Linda Radcliffe, CHAM, manager of patient business services at Virtua Berlin, a hospital in Berlin, NJ.
  • Access staff coped with ED volumes

    Staffing shortages and having to pull staff from other areas due to volume surges in the emergency department (ED) were two challenges Annemarie Rappleyea, CPAR, patient access supervisor for the ED at Community Medical Center in Toms River, NJ, faced during Hurricane Sandy.
  • Say thank you after a crisis

    Here are some ways that patient access managers showed registrars their appreciation after Hurricane Sandy
  • New process makes providers happier

    Before a centralized pre-registration department was created at Cambridge (MA) Health Alliance, patients sometimes received unpleasant, unexpected news when they arrived for a scheduled appointment not about their medical condition, but their insurance coverage.
  • ‘Massive’ training before new process

    Every patient access employee at Cambridge (MA) Health Alliance (CHA) participated in a massive training program provided by the organizations training, customer service, and information technology departments before a new preregistration program was rolled out, says Bettye Sabree, MHA, director of pre-registration and centralized referrals.
  • Wrong PCP? Correct information before arrival

    Before a pre-registration department was created at the organization, insurance requirements for patients to identify a primary care provider used to result in delays in scheduled procedures fairly often, until a pre-registration department was created, says Bettye Sabree, MHA, director of pre-registration and centralized referrals at Cambridge Health Alliance in Medford, MA.
  • Does patient need interpreter services?

    If patients are financially cleared and pre-registered before they present for services, this situation give you the opportunity to obtain demographic information, but do you also consider the patients need for an interpreter at that point?
  • Train registrars as interpreters

    While some patient access employees at Cincinnati (OH) Childrens Hospital Medical Center were bilingual, they werent qualified to serve as interpreters. Now these employees will be offered training based on Kaiser Permanentes Qualified Bilingual Staff Model and Program.
  • Access has role to prevent penalties

    Hospitals are getting penalized for preventable readmissions, due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts linking of Medicare payments to the quality of care that hospitals provide.
  • Collections rise by 25% — The reason? Bonuses

    Collections surged by 25% the first year after a bonus program was implemented in 2010 at The University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.
  • Collect, but give excellent service

    When a bonus was first offered to registrars at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville for meeting specific collection amounts, customer service was top of the mind for patient access leaders.
  • Patient ID pitfalls plague HIE networks

    As patient access staff well know, managing patient identities is one of the hidden problems of health information exchange (HIE) and electronic health record (EHR) technology, according to the National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM).
  • More states require photo ID for voting

    Controversy over photo identification has been in the news a lot in recent months, specifically in regard to laws passed by some states that require photo identification when voting, according to the National Association of Healthcare Access Management.