HCPro.com: Patient Access Advisor

Here's a resource for directors and managers of patient financial services (PFS) to help them capitalize on revenue opportunities and improve the bottom line; every issue is filled with training tools and resources including sample policies, forms, and worksheets to institute improvements in the department, reduce denied claims, improve front-end processes, and track government and private payer rules.

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August 2008 (Volume 5, Issue 8)	view entire issue

Four days and off you go
Two years ago, the patient access team at Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital did not have a formal training program. For a facility whose patient mix is 60% Medicare, that is not a good thing. "[Managers] just sat with them," says Michele Vail, manager of patient access at the 400-bed facility. "There were no documents, no tools. They didn't have a steady manager."

Assess your registration processes
Editor's note: This is the first article in a two-part series. Coming in next month's issue: Recommendations for resolving your registration processes. As registration processes become more complex and registration teams are expected to perform an increasing number of tasks, it might be a good time to take a step back and assess the various aspects of your registration process. You can't decide where you want to be unless you know where you are. Once you assess your current processes, you can prioritize the problems and identify the steps you will need to take to resolve them.

Show, don't tell
The best way to get approval to install or implement an automated quality assurance (QA) system for your facility may be to first create a manual one. Manually attaching real numbers to existing labor costs and errors could show the need for an automated system better than simply stating that one is necessary.

Six tips for quality control auditing
The quality assurance (QA) team at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, CA, used hard numbers to show the need for automated QA software at its facility. Regardless of whether you use a similar approach, consider the following helpful tips and reminders from healthcare consultant Steven G. Orvis, MPH, for use in auditing your QA program

PAA names Albany access manager to advisory board
PAA named Catherine M. Pallozzi, CHAM, CCS, to its advisory board in June. Pallozzi, patient access director at Albany (NY) Medical Center, has worked in healthcare for more than 25 years managing the revenue cycle. She has been with Albany Medical Center for 20 years. Albany is a 631-bed Level I tertiary care teaching facility with a 250-hospital-based physician practice. It provides care to 25 counties in Eastern New York and Western New England.

Training tool: Registration assessment test
Editor's note: The following are sample questions from the assessment test new patient access staff members at Boca Raton (FL) Community Hospital take after their four-day training program. The answers to each question are bolded.

Other recently-published articles from Patient Access Advisor:

Training Tool: Medical necessity

Medicare Secondary Payer

This year’s patient access success

Manual instructions issued for revised ABN form

This Month’s Form

Training Tool: Scripting for the ABN

Enhance your revenue cycle performance through effective communication

100% MSP compliance

Facts on Medicare’s Recovery Audit Contractor program

Get RAC ready

The big picture for your Recovery Audit Contractor team

This Month’s Form

Training Tool: Patient Access Scripting

Last quarter is a good time for a review

FAQs about the new ABN

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