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Patient access staff will have to get used to a change for Medicare patients, with the new Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (ABN) form now used for all situations where Medicare payment is expected to be denied. The form, implemented by the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services (CMS), becomes mandatory March 1, 2009.
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A career ladder has helped the patient access department at Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia, SC, to "build our own leaders," says Charlene B. Cathcart, CHAM, director of admissions and registration.
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Allowing patients the option of pre-registering online is good for patient satisfaction and also frees up patient access staff for those who prefer to speak with a representative.
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After an electronic ordering process was implemented at Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System in Marriottsville, MD, the central scheduling department stopped "pulling their hair out" looking for misplaced or inaccurate orders.
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If your hospital is like most, patients admitted through the emergency department are being held, possibly in hallways, for hours and even days. It's a complicated problem that the patient access department isn't responsible for and can't control. Still, you bear the brunt of the poor customer service scores that result from this situation.
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Declination statements are being used in widespread efforts to have large numbers of outpatient surgery staff members and others vaccinated for the flu.
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Newly released 2009 payment rates for ambulatory surgery will be painful for certain specialties, says Kathy Bryant, president of the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association. For example, gastrointestinal cases have a 7% decrease, which is added to a 5% decrease last year, Bryant says.
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In the wake of a highly publicized outbreak of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Las Vegas, proposed state laws in Nevada include proposals to hire infection preventionists (IPs) as consultants to oversee practice in freestanding centers.
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The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed 13 clinician-level consensus standards related to perioperative care and four facility-level measures in surgery and anesthesia.
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You know you need to enforce infection control practices such as proper equipment sterilization.
