System tests registrars before they access system
March 1, 1998 2 minutes read
System tests registrars before they access system
If they don’t score 85%, they don’t register
While access management as a whole lags behind other health care professions in establishing certification for its front-line workers, at least one health system is taking a leadership role with a comprehensive training and testing program for its registrars.
For the past five years, St. Joseph Mercy Health System in Ann Arbor, MI, has required its registration personnel to attend 10 consecutive half-day sessions covering registration processes and computer system functions, and then demonstrate their competency, says Mary Rita Jones, MSA, ESMA, operations manager for special support services.
"They must score 85% or better [on a written examination] to gain access to the system, to be able to register patients," Jones says. A full four-hour session is allocated for the test, although it normally doesn’t take that long. The exam has a question-and-answer section, but it is composed primarily of various registration scenarios for the employee to complete, using the computer system. Supervisors then access the system to evaluate the employee’s work.
Pass the test or you’re out
Before the training sessions begin, Jones explains, employees are given generic insurance information to read in preparation for the course. Employees who don’t pass the test are allowed to go through the training process one additional time and try again, she explains.
If they don’t make it the second time, they either are given a job that doesn’t include registration duties or are asked to leave the health system’s employ.
There is a yearly inservice on the same material, with one or two half-day sessions and another test, Jones says. Course material includes information on insurance companies and managed care contracts that is specific to St. Joseph, as well as the organization’s internal policies and procedures, but it could be used as a model by other health care institutions, she says.
"We try to go through interactions with the patient in different settings, like admissions as opposed to outpatient," she says. "We look at the effect on revenue of what [the registrar] does."
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