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Auditing the registration process: Part four

Healthcare Auditing Weekly, June 21, 2005

Last week, we discussed three steps for ensuring that the registration staff in your organization captures the information needed to obtain accurate reimbursement. This week, we'll take a look at the final two areas to cover. After verifying insurance, gathering documentation, and reviewing inpatient registration, follow these steps:

1. Review HIPAA and EMTALA compliance

• Identify whether registration staff have been trained on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA)

2. Reconcile charges At the end of the day, organizations should reconcile that day's patients to the actual charges (encounter sheets). Do the following to reconcile:

• Obtain the day's schedule
• Delete no-shows and add unscheduled patients to this schedule
• Compare the actual number of patients to actual charge sheets and ensure that all registered patients had sheets
• Make sure workers distributed the HIPAA privacy notice and recorded this in your health information system

Miss a step? Check out the Healthcare Auditing Weekly Archives.

The above tip is an excerpt from the book "Hospital Auditing and Monitoring: Sample Programs for Key Risk Areas," copyright 2005 by HCPro, Inc. This book is a step-by-step, practical manual that offers sample audit programs for the most troublesome areas that a hospital must audit. The binder and CD-ROM are filled with actual audit programs used by auditors and compliance officers in the field. Click here for more information or to order your copy today.

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