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Putting in place technology and processes to determine the financial resources of self-pay patients at the point of service (POS) has helped increase collections, reduce bad debt, and ensure accuracy of patient identification at Southern Regional Medical Center (SRMC) in Riverdale, GA, says Tracey Frederick, senior systems analyst.
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Patient access specialists at Texas Health Resources (THR) hospitals are learning their job "as it was meant to be learned," one of the many positive outcomes related to implementation of a centralized intake center at the Arlington-based health system, says the center's director, Jeff Ferrell.
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While the classic patient access mantra has become "garbage in, garbage out," managers themselves often fail to heed it, says Michael Friedberg, FACHE, CHAM, director, patient access services at Armanti Financial Services in Bloomfield, NJ.
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The average time spent in emergency departments rose in 2006, but so did patient satisfaction, according to a recent report by Press Ganey Associates. Based on the firm's patient surveys in 1,500 hospitals, patients spent an average of four hours in the ED, 18 minutes more than in 2005.
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The great majority of U.S. health care dollars are spent supporting the chronically ill, yet the traditional focus of hospital care is on the "episode of illness," notes Bob Whipple, RNC, CCM, CCS, MHA, a Boston-based senior management consultant with ACS Healthcare Solutions.
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Except as specified for emergency situations, all inpatient and outpatient medical records must contain a properly executed informed consent form prior to a patient receiving any type of treatment that requires informed consent.
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One of your patients dies as the result of an AIDS-related infection. During the time he was under your care, he made it clear that he did not want his parents to know that he was HIV-positive or suffering from AIDS.
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Physicians in intensive care settings at times make the decision to withdraw life-supporting care from patients who are incapacitated and have no surrogate decision makers or advance directives.
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Preserving a patient's dignity is more important than some doctors think, according to a palliative care expert who points out that loss of dignity is one of the most common reasons patients seek out physician-hastened death.
