Corporate Compliance

Tip: Auditing common EMTALA pitfalls

Healthcare Auditing Weekly, February 5, 2007

The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) ensures that all emergency room patients receive care, regardless of their ability to pay. When auditing an emergency room for EMTALA compliance, watch for these common pitfalls:

  • Failure to document that the transferring hospital accepted a patient for transfer

  • Failure to establish physician compliance with on-call responsibilities

  • Failure to ensure compensation for on-call

  • Failure to appropriately maintain the central/on-call logs

  • Failure to appropriately sequence registration/insurance questions to avoid delaying the medical screening exam

  • Failure to post the appropriate signage to alert patients to their rights under EMTALA

  • Failure to implement procedures that clarify who can conduct the medical screening exam

    The above tip is an excerpt from the book "Hospital Auditing and Monitoring: Sample Programs for Key Risk Areas."

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