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Amid the successes in sharps safety in hospitals in the 21st century, there is one glaring gap: The operating room. Sharps injuries there remain as much of a problem as they were in 2000, when the Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act was signed into law.
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"I was injured at work almost seven years ago. I am still going through financial difficulties. I can never return to nursing. I am left with a lot of nerve damage to my legs and continuous back pain. I receive about $400 biweekly from worker's comp. This is nowhere near my pre-injury pay. Learning to live with pain and limited mobility and chronic money problems has been the worst of it all. Nurse's post on an online forum of Work Injured Nurses' Group (WINGUSA)."
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"Health care personnel refers to all paid and unpaid persons working in health-care settings who have the potential for exposure to patients and/or to infectious materials, including body substances, contaminated medical supplies and equipment, contaminated environmental surfaces, or contaminated air.
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A new rapid tuberculosis test promises to help reduce health care worker exposures through early identification of patients.
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There will be dramatic changes in the works for patient access departments as a result of health care reform legislation. That is for certain. But many important details are still unclear.
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Does a system claim to be the "be all, do all" for your patient access department's issues, such as an eligibility system verifying benefits for all payers? If so, be skeptical.
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Reasons for claims denials often can be traced back to factors beyond patient access, such lack of medical necessity, lack of clinical documentation, or a physician not participating with a plan. This is why "patient access cannot work as a silo in reviewing claim denials," says Carol Triggs, MS, director of patient access at St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, NY.
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To reduce administrative claims denials, Virtua Healthcare System in Marlton, NJ, did two Six Sigma projects. "Our major mission for the first project was to identify root causes that resulted in administrative denials at all campuses and all registration types," says Diane E. Mastalski, CHAA, CHAM, director of patient access.
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Next time you get a complaint, don't let it ruin your day. Instead, find a way to make a customer's dissatisfaction work to your advantage.
