Healthcare Financial Management articles from April 2004

Healthcare Financial Management archives from April 2004

CMS changes drug billing and payments.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Implementation instructions for outpatient PPS changes to billing and payment for outpatient drugs will require hospitals to submit adjustment bills and fiscal intermediaries (FIs) to make certain payment adjustments, according to two CMS...

CMS restores rate exceptions for pediatric ESRD facilities.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(end-stage renal disease)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... On February 20, CMS announced it would restore composite rate exceptions for pediatric facilities under the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) composite rate system. In addition, the agency now defines a pediatric facility as one in which at least...

CMS limits 14-day payment period to HIPAA-compliant claims.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Effective July 1, 2004, only electronic media claims (EMCs) that are compliant with the HIPAA transactions standards are eligible for payment 14 days after the date of receipt, CMS instructed intermediaries and carriers on February 27. The...

FDA issues final bar coding rule for drugs and blood.(Policy Watch)(Food and Drug Administration)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... On February 25, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final rule requiring bar codes on most drugs commonly used in hospitals and on container labels for blood and blood components intended for transfusion. The rule is key to industry...

Executive summit speaker flags new compliance issues.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Providers should consider incorporating recently proposed federal sentencing guidelines changes into their compliance plans, Joanne Judge, attorney and former HFMA national chairman, told attendees of HFMA's Healthcare Finance Executive Summit...

MedPAC's 2005 recommendations are mixed bag for providers.(Policy Watch)(Medicare Payment Advisory Commission)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) has called for a range of provider changes for 2005, including elimination of the outlier policy for the hospital outpatient PPS and full market basket updates for FY05 hospital inpatient and...

On March 12, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, was confirmed by the Senate as new CMS administrator.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... On March 12, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, was confirmed by the Senate as new CMS administrator. McClellan has led the FDA since November 2002 and has served on the White House Council of Economic...

CMS published the first update to the 2004 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) database.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... CMS published the first update to the 2004 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) database. The MPFS contains over 10,000 physician services, the associated relative value units, a fee schedule status indicator, and various payment policy...

CMS proposes daily posting of nursing facility FTEs.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(full-time equivalents)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... All nursing facilities face a new Medicare data collection and recordkeeping burden, under a CMS proposed rule published in the February 27 Federal Register. CMS proposes that nursing facilities complete a CMS-specified form at the end of each...

Transfer policy set for patients who leave against medical advice.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Effective October 1, 2003, a patient who leaves a hospital against medical advice and is admitted to another inpatient PPS hospital on the same day will be treated as a transfer and the transfer payment policy will apply, according to a...

States seek to reduce costs of long-term care; as baby boomers get closer to retirement and state budgets continue to be overwhelmed by increasing Medicaid spending, state lawmakers face difficult decisions about how to manage healthcare expenditures.(State Policy Watch)
April 1, 2004... The cost of traditional long-term care, in particular, has become prohibitively burdensome to states, causing state lawmakers to begin looking in earnest for ways to cut long-term care outlays. Long-term care legislation in recent years has...

It just keeps getting better.(From the Chairman)(Healthcare Financial Management Association)
April 1, 2004... I never tire of being a champion for HFMA and encouraging others to get involved. In 1982, HFMA admitted its 20,000th member. Today we're more than 32,000 strong. Those numbers are powerful when you consider how many opportunities exist for...

Healthcare spending projected to slow.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Healthcare spending is projected to grow by 7.8 percent in 2003, down from the 9.3 percent growth in 2002, according to the estimates released February ]l by the CMS Office of the Actuary and published on-line by Health Affairs. The slowdown...

Surveyed hospital execs say they plan to build.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Hospital construction will continue to boom for the next three years, according to results of a survey of 200 senior healthcare executives released February 11 by Turner Construction Company. Of the respondents, 69 percent reported that their...

Revocation of hospital's tax-exempt status could harm charitable services.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Illinois regulators have revoked the tax-exempt status of Provena Covenant Medical Center, an action Provena vows to appeal, according to a February 18 report by the Champaign, Ill.-based News-Gazette. Provena and another Illinois hospital have...

CFOs expect double-digit increase in capital spending.(Industry Watch)(Chief financial officers)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Nearly three-fourths of CFOs said they will increase their hospitals' capital spending over the next five years, according to survey findings published in HFMA's latest Financing the Future report. CFOs plan to increase capital spending by 14...

HMO profits show 73 percent increase in second quarter 2003.(Industry Watch)(Health maintenance organizations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The nation's HMOs reported a $4.3 billion profit during the first six months of 2003, representing a $1.8 billion, or 73.3 percent, jump over the $2.5 billion earned during the same period in 2002, according to Weiss Ratings Inc. Improved...

Hospitals struggle to meet Leapfrog standards.(Industry Watch)(Leapfrog Group)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The Leapfrog Group is ambitious in its drive to improve patient safety in hospitals, but few hospitals are close to meeting the group's standards for computerized prescriptions, specially trained intensive care unit (ICU) physicians, and volume...

Septicemia rate following elective surgery.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Septicemia Rate Following Elective Surgery White 10.9 Black 17.3 Hispanic 14.9 Asian/Pacific Islander 14.5 Postoperative septicemia per 1,000 elective surgical...

Survey finds internal control assurance carries high price.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Compliance comes at a high cost, according to a Financial Executives International (FED survey of public companies' implementation costs of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's (SOA's) internal controls requirements (Section 404). The cost of compliance...

Quotes of note.(Industry Watch)(health care industry)
April 1, 2004... "Baby boomers will force the government to choose either cutting Medicare or enacting tax increases. Continued cost pressures will create a tug-of-war between employers and employees over the increasing health costs." --Henry Aaron, an...

Capacity improvements reduce ED diversions.(emergency department)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Capacity management improvements in hospitals have been critical in stabilizing emergency department (ED) diversions, according to a report recently released by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). The report, based on the...

Regional Executive Council nominated.(Healthcare Financial Management Association)
April 1, 2004... Robert L. Broadway, FHFMA, will chair HFMA's Regional Executive Council for the 2004-05 term, which begins June 1, 2004. Broadway, a member of HFMA's National Board of Directors and co-chairman of the Regional Executive Council, is vice...

MMA payment rate resource available.(Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) addressed changes to the Medicare managed care plans, now known as Medicare Advantage plans (formerly Medicare+Choice). The document MMA Medicare+Choice Provisions...

NPI final rule explained. lable.(HFMA News)(National Provider Identifier)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... HHS published the final rules adopting the National Provider Identifier (NPI) on January 23, 2004, as the standard unique identifier for healthcare providers in HIPAA standard transactions. The NPI is a numeric designation for covered entities,...

Could the election year have anything to do with that?(Eye On Washington)(Health care industry)
April 1, 2004... It's election year again... sigh! It was difficult to comprehend as it was happening--how politicians could fall all over themselves to get the federal government to throw more money into a new Medicare benefit, just when our nation was...

Flourishing through focused leadership: the mark of good leadership is focusing on what followers want, and that is competence, integrity, consistency, courage, and humility.(Executive Insights)
April 1, 2004... These words sum up the leadership philosophy of James D. Beck, CFO of All Saints Healthcare in Racine, Wis. In this interview with hfm, Beck shared his views on leadership and the role effective leadership plays in promoting staff retention and...

Business planning: reasons, definitions, and elements.(Business)(Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System)
April 1, 2004... Transitioning from a decentralized business planning structure enabled The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System to drive creativity and the organization's entrepreneurial spirit to new heights. A multidisciplinary team composed of...

Are you getting the most from your revenue-cycle management system?(Revenue Cycle)
April 1, 2004... Web-based networks and robust, integrated information management systems--combined with redesigned revenue-cycle processes--can deliver double-digit financial improvement to an organization's bottom line. Unfortunately, transformational...

Searching for risk; the search for business risk will take you on an enlightening journey throughout your organization.(Cover Story)
April 1, 2004... An audit of a teaching hospital notes that not all funds from a research grant were used for the project; these funds were subject to unrelated business income tax, but the tax was not paid. A national competitor hires away the hospital's...

Dividing a trillion-dollar pie; new payment trends, with more than $1 trillion at stake, have providers and payers jockeying to allocate risk to their own advantage.(Feature Story)
April 1, 2004... What's next for healthcare payment methods? This year payments to providers are expected to total $1.5 trillion, or one eighth of the U.S. economy, according to the CMS Office of the Actuary. This astounding sum of money will be paid using...

A new image for long-term care: the professional liability crisis affecting nursing homes threatens to make long-term care ownership a bad bet for hospitals and health systems.(Feature Story)
April 1, 2004... Here's a true story. A 93-year-old woman who had been living in a nursing home for five years was admitted to the hospital and died of dehydration. (a) Inquiries into the cause of death found that the woman had had neither food nor drink for as...

Managing costs through clinical quality improvement: by employing care-based cost management, providers can reduce costs and improve efficiencies.(Feature Story)
April 1, 2004... The average cost of hospitalization for a patient on a ventilator is $19,444. Should the patient become dehydrated, however, costs can go up to $50,000. The difference in payment the hospital receives for providing care in both instances? ...

Business-office challenges of small and rural hospitals.(HFMA roundtable)
April 1, 2004... All hospitals face tremendous challenges in optimizing their business-office operations these days. Tighter and more complex reimbursement requirements, ongoing human resources shortages, rising HR costs, and changes in information technology...

Reducing your credentialing liability: all too often, healthcare organizations and their medical staff are targets of medical malpractice lawsuits.(Leadership And Management)
April 1, 2004... As a form of risk management, healthcare financial managers need to know more about the elements of risk and the ways that risk is managed. (a) In malpractice cases involving physicians, a healthcare organization's credentialing process...

Using metrics to achieve optimal ROI: every information technology (IT) project in health care seeks to achieve optimal return on investment (ROI) But exactly how do you measure and achieve this return? It's a common struggle for healthcare providers.(Digital Perspectives)(Return On Investment )
April 1, 2004... One way to meet this challenge is by employing a disciplined approach to metrics and a benefits-opportunity analysis during the inception of the project, through the go-live stage, and long after. Whether your objective is to reduce avoidable...

Growing pains: the difference between strategic and nonstrategic growth.(New Revenue Growth)
April 1, 2004... Community General Hospital (a fictitious institution) is a 250-bed hospital located at the periphery of a major metropolitan area. Community General's revenues were flat for the three years ending 2001, and with rising expenses, the hospital's...

Calendar.(Calendar)
April 1, 2004... CALENDAR Spring 2004 Seminars Level Seminar 4/21/22 Alexandria, 5/17-20 Va. San Diego ...

Kimberly Boynton (Central New York Chapter).(appointments,Crouse Hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Boynton has been promoted from vice president, finance, to CFO, Crouse Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.

Meredith Colagiovanni (Central New York Chapter).(appointments, Crouse Hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Colagiovanni has been promoted from financial analyst manager to director of finance, Crouse Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y.

Kendall E. Johnson, FHFMA (Sunflower [Kansas] Chapter).(appointments, Galichia Heart Hospital)(Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Johnson has joined Galichia Heart Hospital, Wichita, Kans., as CFO. Previously, he was director of finance/controller, Via Christi Regional Medical Center, Wichita.

Robert M. Ragonese (Colorado Chapter).(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Ragonese has been appointed vice president, patient financial services, Centura Health, Denver. He had been director of patient accounts, HCA--The Healthcare Company, San Jose, Calif.

James E. Russell (New Jersey Chapter).(appointment, CBIZ KA Consulting Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Russell has been named senior manager, patient financial services product leader, CBIZ KA Consulting Services, East Windsor, N.J. Formerly, he was manager, KPMG, LLP, Lawrenceville, N.J.

Brian D. Hamilton (Texas Gulf Coast Chapter).(appointments, Memorial Hermann Fort Bend Hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Hamilton has joined Memorial Hermann Fort Bend Hospital, Missouri City, Tex., as assistant vice president/CFO. He had been controller, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tenn.

Timothy Hill (North Carolina Chapter).(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Hill has been named senior manager, corporate financial services division, HCA Healthcare, Nashville, Tenn. He had been director, patient financial services, Chatham Hospital, Inc., Siler City, N.C.

Dawnlynne Kacer (Georgia Chapter).(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Kacer has been named associate product manager, Keane, Inc., Healthcare Solutions Division, Jacksonville, Fla. Formerly, she was information and systems analyst, Athens Regional Medical Center, Athens, Ga.

Lee Johnson, FHFMA (Washington/Alaska Chapter).(appointments, Harrison Hospital)(Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Johnson has joined Harrison Hospital, Bremerton, Wash., as director patient financial services. Previously, he was director patient financial services, Central Washington Hospital. Wenatchee, Wash.

Louis Caligiuri (Massachusetts Chapter).(appointments, North Shore Medical Center/Salem Hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Caligiuri has joined North Shore Medical Center/Salem Hospital, Physician Services and Managed Care, Salem, Mass., as director of physician contracting and recruiting. Previously, he was manager, system contracting, Partners Healthcare...

Stephanie F. Delks (Indiana Pressler Memorial Chapter).(appointments)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Delks has been named director of business operations, The Care Group, Indianapolis. Formerly, she was director, patient financial services, St. Paul and Zale Lipshy University Hospitals, Dallas.

Mark Fuqua (Indiana Pressler Memorial Chapter).(appointment, Memorial Clinic)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Fuqua has joined Memorial Clinic, Indianapolis, as controller. He had been controller, U.S. Medical Management, Indianapolis.

Robert L. Howey, III (Florida Chapter).(People)(Mayo Clinic (Jacksonville, Florida))(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Howey has been appointed regulatory/reimbursement process manager, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla. Previously, he was manager, risk advisory services, KPMG, LLP, Jacksonville.

Anna Bizzle (Tennessee Chapter).(People)(Baptist Memorial Health System)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Bizzle has been named business office director, Baptist Memorial Health System, Covington, Tenn. She had been business office director, Baptist Memorial Health System, Blytheville, Ark.

Heather Lynn Weber (New Jersey Chapter).(People)(Kimball Medical Center)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Weber has been named director of financial services, Kimball Medical Center, Lakewood, N.J. She had been senior manager, Ernst & Young, LLP, Iselin, N.J.

Erich Koch (North Dakota Chapter).(People)(Valley Hospital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Koch has joined Valley Hospital, Palmer, Ark., as controller, he had been CFO, Cavalier County Memorial Hospital, Langdon, N.D.

Donna Maynard (Southern California Chapter).(People)(St. Bernadine's Medical Center)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Maynard has joined St. Bernadine's Medical Center, San Bernardino, Calif. Previously, she was admitting manager, Glendale Memorial Hospital, Glendale, Calif.

Michael Mulyk (New Jersey Chapter).(People)(Beth Israel Medical Center)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Mr. Mulyk has been appointed director, materials management, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York. Previously, he was assistant director, support services, Trinitas Hospital, Elizabeth, N. J.

Sheri Beekman (Greater St. Louis Chapter).(People)(St. Johns Mercy Healthcare)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2004... Ms. Beekman has been promoted from executive director, receivables and HIM, to vice president, patient financial services, St. Johns Mercy Healthcare, St. Louis. To have your change of position published in "People," contact Dorothy...

Coding secondary outpatient services.(Data Trends)
April 1, 2004... Although it has been almost four years since CMS implemented the outpatient PPS and APC payment methodology, many hospitals have yet to fully master the details of the PPS. Under APCs, hospitals must accurately capture all services provided,...

Off to the presidential races: so it's Kerry against Bush. Yes, the presidential primaries are over, for all practical purposes, and the race for the White House is now in full swing.(From The President)(George W. Bush and John F. Kerry)
April 1, 2004... Already each candidate is attempting to distinguish himself as an effective leader who will deal with the key issues important to Americans. For this race, health care will be a key issue. Both candidates appear to have defined key...