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Patient access staff are the very first contact many patients have with physicians and facilities. Whether staff are registering patients in the emergency department, call center or at the front desk of a physician's office, "this first impression has long-lasting effects," says Colleen McMahon, senior manager of the integrated call center/ University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) physician service division, registration and scheduling.
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You may not think of it this way, but your department has a wealth of data that would impress others. Have patient wait times decreased dramatically, have patient complaints become almost non-existent, or have your accuracy rates doubled? Don't resist the urge to brag.
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While you wish that no patient ever had to wait in any registration area, that's not realistic due to patient volumes and other factors beyond the control of your department.
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If you want to see how satisfied your customers are, some type of survey is probably the tool you rely on. Kathleen Bowles, a hospital admitting supervisor at The Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus, says that patient satisfaction scores "are a concrete reflection of our efforts, that everyone in the department can understand."
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Access departments struggling with dwindling cash collections may find that some simple incentives can work wonders. On the other hand, there are some potential pitfalls to consider.
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Registrars at Kettering Health Network in Dayton, OH, reported feeling very uncomfortable with certain 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Although business associates are now subject to compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule and the use and disclosure provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, as a result of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, hospitals should not assume business associates are taking steps to ensure their compliance.
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Four months in prison and a $2,000 fine to Huping Zhou, a 47-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon from China and a UCLA health care system employee, for violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) should be a cause for concern for hospitals.
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Hospitals and provider networks lead the list of health care entities reporting breaches of unsecured protected health information (PHI), according to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) breach notification website, which lists 166 entities as of Sept. 30.
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