HCPro.com: Patient Access Weekly Advisor

PAWA offers best-practice tips from access professionals across the country who have found success with innovative approaches to problems. PAWA will also include a timely news brief to help you fine-tune processes and develop solutions for ongoing problems, such as collecting more money upfront and determining deductibles on high-deductible health plans.

October 8, 2008 (Volume 1, Issue 71)

REGISTRATION ACCURACY: How your peers measure up
Want to know how your peers do with their registration accuracy rates? Want to know if their numbers are better than they were 18 months ago? We at the Patient Access Resource Center (PARC) do, too. That is why we prepared this short survey on registration accuracy. We plan to use the results to produce our free, fourth-quarter benchmarking report. Your revenue cycle department is only as good as your patient access team. And it all begins with accuracy on the front end. Please help us put together a report on registration accuracy by taking this short survey. To take the short survey, please click here. Thanks for your help, Sincerely, Dom Nicastro Senior Managing Editor Patient Access Resource Center www.accessresourcecenter.com 781-639-1872, ext. 3413 dnicastro@hcpro.com

NEWS: MA residents using ER for routine care
Patients who acquired state-aided insurance are using emergency rooms in Massachusetts at a higher rate than the state’s residents overall, the Boston Globe reports. And that is not good news for hospitals. And not good for the state’s new universal healthcare policy, officials say. To read more in the Boston Globe, click here.

NEWS: Medicare fraud suspected in Miami
Federal regulators are investigating charges to Medicare in the Miami area, where government costs have rose 20 times past the national average in the last five years, USA Today reports. Miami-Dade County’s home-health services this fiscal year could cost Medicare a projected $1.3 billion. To read more in USA Today, click here.

QUALITY CONTROL: 8 tips for quality control auditing
The quality assurance team at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, CA used hard numbers to show the need for automated quality assurance software for its facility. Whether you use a similar approach or not, here are some helpful tips and reminders from healthcare consultant Steven Orvis as you think about your quality assurance program: 1. Eliminate subjectivity on front end. Software providers can create lists of customized services that physicians regularly provide. When a service is ordered, staff members enter a diagnosis code, and the software determines whether it meets medical necessity. It can also generate an Advanced Beneficiary Notice (ABN), as necessary. The advantage of having this as part of the front-end tools is that it is hard to train or expect staff to make medical necessity determinations, and this eliminates subjectivity.

Other recently-published articles from Patient Access Weekly Advisor:

BENCHMARK REPORT: Registration accuracy rates

NEWS: Patients don’t understand Medicare coverage gap

RAC UPDATE: CMS RAC Open Door forum

2008 SUCCESS: One patient access manager’s highlights

What’s new on PARC?

SNEAK PEEK: Be prepared for ABN changes

BENCHMARK REPORT: Registration accuracy rates

2008 SUCCESS: One patient access manager’s highlights

BENCHMARK REPORT: Registration accuracy rates

2008 SUCCESS: One patient access manager’s highlights

NEWS: Changes for Medicare drug program

NEWS: CMS delays RAC permanent program

NEWS: MA doctors wanting bonuses required by 2011 to use e-prescriptions

CHANGES COMING: Key differences in nationwide rollout

2008 SUCCESS: One patient access manager’s highlights

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