There are some Joint Commission EPs with which almost all hospital HIM departments struggle. Surveyors continue to focus on them, so chances are you should too.
When President Obama signed into law the HITECH Act as part of ARRA in February 2009, it meant a bevy of changes to the existing HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules.
When Nancy Herr, RN, BSN, CCM, manager of utilization review at Liberty (MO) Hospital, started seeing an uptick in RAC audits late in 2010, she knew she needed a way to track activity and share it with others in her facility.
Test your knowledge of HIPAA: Is it permissible to leave voice messages on patients' home or work phones reminding them of appointments? Is it okay to use stickers on the outside of a patient's chart to remind us of his or her payer source? I need to take copies of documents home to finish up my clinical notes. Is this a violation of HIPAA?
Efforts to educate medical staff members on Medicare or other payer policies can be like herding cats. However, it is necessary to ensure compliance. The case management department cannot improve level of care decisions without cooperation from medical staff members.
Even with today's tight budgets, there are still ways you can brighten the faces of your staff members. We asked the MRB advisory board members for their best ideas and tried-and-true tactics. Here's what they had to say.
