Briefing Paper: Email and electronic communications

The first in a series of briefing papers on administrative topics:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16018098/Email-Briefing-Paper-Health-Care

Selling Health Care Reform

President Obama is selling health care reform with the argument that we need to fix health care in order to fix the overall economy.

Economic advisor Christina Romer distributed an op-ed piece today explaining how health care reform would 1) improve family incomes, 2) enhanced GDP, 3) lower budget deficits, 4) lower unemployment, 5) provide greater health care coverage (of course) and a 6) better labor market.

Wow. This is quite a claim.

Full report: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/CEA_Health_Care_report.pdf

Denial Management

Denial management (whether the denials are based on substance, stalling or practice error) is a key part of revenue cycle management. Some quick tips:

1) every denial should be logged in

2) every denial should have an answer date assigned

3) there should be clear responsibility for answering the denials

4) denials should be compiled for trend analysis, especially practice errors and denials by payer

5) prompt pay laws should be used when applicable (although be careful about starting wars with payers)

6) summaries should be prepared monthly and reviewed for management action


If a practice is behind on denial management, create a strategy to catch up, focusing on the most probable collections and the highest value claims.

The Blog Family

Now we have a blog family………


Health Care Reform and Public Policy

http://healthcarethinktank.blogspot.com/

healthcarethinktank@gmail.com


Physician Group Practice Management Topics

http://practicemanagementnews.blogspot.com/

practicemanagementnews@gmail.com


Long-term Care Management News

http://longtermcareupdates.blogspot.com/

longtermcareupdates@gmail.com

HIPAA Security - Alert #3

Disposing of Computers:

A British research group bought about 300 used computers from on-line sources and second hand stores.

The purpose was to search for confidential data on hard drives.

Among other data, the researchers found top secret classified U.S. military defense plans. Oops!

Used practice computers should not be sold or discarded unless the hard drive is removed or a real expert "wipes" the hard drive. Using the computers standard "delete" function does not wipe the information from the drive.

Old hard drives that cannot be wiped are best removed from the machine and "fixed" with a large hammer, and then disposed of in a pile of trash not likely to attract the curious.

This advice goes as well for portable devices of all kinds.

Shredder Talk

The original shredder models cut paper in strips and neatly deposited the strips into a bag or box.

The U.S. State Department eventually learned the shredding could, with enough patience, be reconstructed (in 1979 several hundred Iranian students reassembled thousands of documents during the Iranian hostage crisis).

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have found the reconstruction technique quite useful. An accountant was recently indicted for tax evasion after shredding in his trash was reconstructed.

Someone diving in your practice dumpster could also reconstruct strip shredded documents.

New shredders are double-cut, creating confetti instead of strips. While not impossible, this confetti would be very difficult to reconstruct.

We highly recommend the double-cut shredders.

Plastic Surgery Sagging

Plastic surgeons have made fortunes on private pay patients seeking elective surgeries.

The recession has apparently hit hard enough to lower demand for plastic surgery services.

We recently saw a billboard with discount package prices for breast enhancement and lipo.

Based on media reports, there may be one growth area in plastic surgery - fixing botched plastic surgery.

This is a serious recession!