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Tip: Prepare for cost estimate training with new ABNs

Patient Access Weekly Advisor, April 16, 2008

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Patient access managers must train their representatives to adapt to the new Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage, or ABN, which CMS released March 3 and that will be mandatory for facilities to use by September 1.

The focus of the training should be on the new requirement for access staff members to provide a cost estimate of the service to the patient, says Yvonne Focke, RN, BSN, MBA, regional director of revenue cycle management at Mercy Health Partners in Cincinnati.

In an age of competitive healthcare in which patients shop more than they ever have, some access managers may have already addressed cost estimates; now, they all have to address it.

The key for access managers is to start simple, says Focke.

“Have an agreement with your chargemaster people and with your patient financial services and revenue cycle people and say you want a list [of prices] that you can work from,” Focke says. “From the list, then the training begins.”

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