Healthcare Financial Management articles from February 2004

Healthcare Financial Management archives from February 2004

Physician payment rates increase while drug payments fall.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... On January 1, 2004, Medicare payments to physicians increased by 1.5 percent. CMS announced the payment increase in a final rule released December 31, 2003, and published in the January 7, 2004, Federal Register. The new payment rates...

CMS issues new outpatient policies.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... CMS has provided implementing instructions for certain DIMA provisions that affect outpatient prospective payment. The instructions appear in an interim final rule published in the January 6, 2004, Federal Register. The rule extends the...

CMS instructions address Medicare act and other 2004 changes.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... In the last two weeks of December 2004, CMS issued almost 30 instructions to fiscal intermediaries and carriers implementing changes to various Medicare payment systems, including payment adjustments necessitated by DIMA. Key transmittals...

Rural Health Clinic requirements change.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Medicare certification and payment requirements for rural health clinics (RHCs) have changed, according to a CMS final rule published in the December 24, 2003, Federal Register. The rule changes the definition of a qualifying rural shortage...

Geographic classification appeals procedure announced.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... CMS issued a notice December 31, 2003, outlining procedures for hospitals to request reclassification to geographic areas with higher payment rates under Medicare's inpatient PPS. The notice implements a one-time-only appeals process required...

CMS clarifies incentive payment for servicing HPSAs.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, health professional shortage area)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The "place of service" and not the location of the physician's facility, determines eligibility for incentive payments for providing services in a health professional shortage area (HPSA), according to a recent CMS transmittal. This incentive...

Self-referral rule effective date extended again.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... CMS has again delayed the effective date of a portion of the physician self-referral rule while it reconsiders the rule's definition of "set in advance." The new effective date is July 7, 2004. In question is the last sentence of physician...

CMS published on January 2 a one-time notification providing instructions on the April quarterly update for the 2004 durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies fee schedule.(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... ... CMS published on January 2 a one-time notification providing instructions on the April quarterly update for the 2004 durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics, and supplies fee schedule. To view the schedule, go to www.cms.hhs.gov/...

The FASB has published a revision to Interpretation 46 (46R) to clarify some of the provisions of FASB Interpretation No. 46, "Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities," and to exempt certain entities from its requirements.(Financial Accounting Standards Board)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... ... The FASB has published a revision to Interpretation 46 (46R) to clarify some of the provisions of FASB Interpretation No. 46, "Consolidation of Variable Interest Entities," and to exempt certain entities from its requirements. The...

CMS increases payment rate for copying records.(Policy Watch)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Effective January 5, 2004, CMS increased the payment rate for photocopying medical records requested by quality improvement organizations (QIOs) from 7 cents to 12 cents per page, according to a final rule published in the December 5, 2003,...

CMS updates view of medical devices and suppliers market.(Policy Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... CMS has published its 2003 overview of how the financial markets view medical device manufacturers and suppliers and finds that the companies included in the review are strong and expect continued revenue growth through the introduction of new...

HFMA's tremendous impact on our lives: when I started out in my career, I had no idea I'd end up where I am today--heading my own hospital accounts receivable management firm.(From The Chairman)(Healthcare Financial Management Association )
February 1, 2004... The contacts I made through HFMA strongly influenced my career path. I found jobs, furthered my education, and became certified--all with the help of fellow HFMA members. How different my life would be if I hadn't joined HFMA. Cindy Sharp,...

Health care totals 14.9 percent of nation's 2002 expenditures.(Industry Watch)
February 1, 2004... Healthcare spending amounted to $1.6 trillion in 2002, reaching 14.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and a per capita level of $5,440. The new spending high was 9.3 percent more than 2001's $1.4 billion, a rate of increase more than...

Medicare HMO enrollment, benefits decline, premiums rise.(Industry Watch)(Health Maintenance Organization)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Substantially fewer Medicare beneficiaries are in private plans today than were in the late 1990s, Mathematica Policy Research reported in a December 2003 fact sheet, In 1999, 17.3 percent of Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in private...

States cut public health insurance coverage in response to budget pressures.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Sluggish revenues and severe budget cuts have forced 34 stales to trim their Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIPs) over the last couple of years, according to a report released by the Center on Budget and Policy...

AHA calls for clarified billing regulations, offers guidance.(Industry Watch)(American Hospital Association)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Federal regulations make it difficult for hospitals to help uninsured patients with their hospital bills, the American Hospital Association (AHA) said at a media briefing on December 17. In a letter to HHS secretary Tommy Thompson, AHA...

Employers cost-shift to ease health benefit costs.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... The average cost of health benefits rose by 10 percent per employee in 2003, a downward trend compared with a 15 percent increase in 2002, according to a survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. The survey sampled nearly 3,000 employer's...

States report Medicaid spending exceeds budget.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Although the recent state budget crisis has shown signs of improvement, spending for programs such as Medicaid continues to challenge state legislators, according to a report released by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)....

S&P reports divergence in U.S. not-for-profit healthcare credit quality.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Standard & Poor's (S&P), in a report on the not-for profit healthcare sector January 6, 2004, sees the strong doing well and the weak in trouble. "Many credits have successfully emerged from the difficulties of the past few years through...

Quotes of note.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... "In a social-insurance program, such as Medicare, extreme variations in benefits, based solely on where a beneficiary happens to live, are hard to justify." --Robert Berenson, a former Medicare administrator in the Clinton administration,...

Tenet Pennsylvania to close, sell hospitals.(Industry Watch)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Tenet Pennsylvania (a part of Tenet Healthcare Corporation) announced its intent to close the 379-bed Medical College of Pennsylvania (MCP) Hospital on March 31, 2004. Phillip Schaengold, vice president of operations, attributes the decision in...

HFMA hosts Executive Summit.(Healthcare Financial Management Association)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... HFMA will host Healthcare Finance: The Executive Summit, February 29 to March 2 in New York. Known previously as the CFO Exchange, the conference will feature numerous sessions on capital access and debt reformation, with presentations from...

HFMA releases second Financing the Future report.(Healthcare Financial Management Association)
February 1, 2004... Growing demands by aging baby boomers, payment pressures, heightened patient expectations. and technical innovations are forcing many hospitals to focus on short-term margins without spending sufficient capital to support their long-term needs....

Spring seminars come to San Antonio, New Orleans.(HFMA News)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... HFMA continues its 2004 Spring Seminar Series from February 23 to 26 in San Antonio and March 15 to 18 in New Orleans. Sessions are geared to the interests of CFOs, financial and operational professionals, and other individuals responsible...

New Resource Center documents out.(HFMA News)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... HFMA's Resource Center recently released the following documents: Healthcare Complexities Work against All of Us. This document features HFMA President and CEO Dick Clarke's response to the Wall Street Journal's November 11, 2003, article...

Medicare bill sets precedent for future funding: almost all seniors are better off under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, signed into law by President Bush on December 8, 2003.(Eye On Washington)(George W. Bush)
February 1, 2004... Given the closeness of the vote--220 to 215 in the House of Representatives and 54 to 44 in the Senate--and the nearness to the next election, it is hardly surprising that many Democrats, and a few Republicans as well, have been increasing the...

A time for opportunity: a hospital with virtually no nursing shortage and a 24-year record of net positive income? We must be dreaming. Could such an organization exist?(Executive Insights)
February 1, 2004... We are in the process of moving roughly seven miles from our current location to a former army hospital base east of downtown Denver. The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center is moving its medical school and research facilities, and...

Are you ready for 2004's challenges?(Business)(Health care industry)
February 1, 2004... As 2004 unfolds, the economy is starting to rebound, security threats continue at home and abroad, and preparations for the presidential elections are under way. Health care will be affected not only by these events, but also by the industry's...

Are your outlier charges likely to raise CMS scrutiny?(Revenue Cycle)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
February 1, 2004... Neither operating a hospital in compliance with Medicare rules nor staying afloat in today's healthcare environment is simple. The hospital payment system is complicated and often changing. Managed care and other payers are constantly trying to...

Balancing IT risks and rewards: nearly every hospital department has an IT wish list. How can CFOs allocate their IT budget wisely?(Chief financial officers)(Cover Story)
February 1, 2004... Prioritizing IT investments has never been more difficult. In many hospitals, a constant flow of regulation, vendor technology upgrades, and new applications has created backlogs of hundreds of project requests, numerous vendor relationships,...

Immediate steps toward patient safety: one health system explains how bar-code point-of-care technology offered a means to reduce medication errors that can be implemented relatively easily while pursuing more complex, long-term solutions.(Feature Story)
February 1, 2004... Ever since the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued its groundbreaking report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System in December 1999, patient safety has been a major concern for the nation's healthcare system. A recent study found that...

Key tools for turning receivables into cash: several tools are available to help healthcare financial managers discover ways to improve an organization's revenue-to-cash cycle.(Feature Story)
February 1, 2004... When facing the voracious capita] requirements of a healthcare provider, CFOs and business office directors frequently worry that something is wrong with their revenue-to-cash cycle, but cannot quite identify the problem. Fortunately,...

HFMA Roundtable: no-nonsense tactics for revenue-cycle improvement.(Sponsored Supplement)(Healthcare Financial Management Association)
February 1, 2004... With reimbursement pressures continuing to intensify, technologies changing, and hospitals and health systems going through tremendous organizational and operational change, how can healthcare finance leaders help their organizations move...

Scorecards, dashboards, and KPIs keys to integrated performance measurement: to effectively measure performance, providers need more than just a balanced scorecard; they also must be able to access performance data from a central data warehouse.(Feature Story)(key performance indicator)
February 1, 2004... If you find it challenging to assess your organization's financial and operational performance, you are not alone. It's a task that operational managers of many hospital and health systems find daunting. Consider the case of Houston-based...

Dotting the i's and crossing the t's: ensuring the best IT contract.(Special Advertising Section)
February 1, 2004... Investment in information technology by hospitals and health systems, already huge in volume, is expected to increase significantly in the next five to eight years. (1) Spurred by the need for increased productivity, enhanced patient safety,...

HIMSS 2004 heads to Orlando!(Special Advertising Section)(Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society)(Brief Article)(Advertisement)
February 1, 2004... With more than 700 exhibitors and 20,000 healthcare information technology professionals expected to participate, the 2004 Annual HIMSS Conference & Exhibition is shaping up to be a comprehensive resource on healthcare information technology....

Diversity: how does it help? Over the past several years, managers of most types of organizations have been exhorted to increase diversity within the organizational ranks.(Leadership And Management)
February 1, 2004... Nonetheless, reasonable managers should consider carefully what diversity means and what goals are achieved from it. Clear thinking and appropriate organizational goals should prevail over political correctness. Proponents of diversity cite...

Controlling your high-tech security shopping list: does your budget for HIPAA security read like a shopping list filled with unnecessary cans of alphabet soup? You may be right.(Digital Perspectives)
February 1, 2004... There may be a flawed reason that IS requests include SEM tools to manage IDS data--or perhaps not. Getting the IS0 to explain the underlying assumptions made when establishing technology needs (and define acronyms) can help healthcare...

Activity-Based Cost Accounting: an Executive's Guide.(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Gary Cokins John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 2001 384 pages, $34.95 Activity-Based Cost Accounting: An Executive's Guide is an update and refinement to Cokins's previous publications on activity-based cost management (ABC/M). The book...

Organizing and managing successful growth: how is it that some firms, such as General Electric and Toyota, manage to grow in a financially beneficial manner year after year, while many others don't?(New Revenue Growth)
February 1, 2004... "There is that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same." --Norman Mailer Research shows that financial success is a function of a few basics: vision, leadership, and execution. ...

Convincing your board that you're not Dennis Kozlowski: back in September, The New York Times' "Market Watch" column warned, "too many executives are up to the same old tricks of managing earnings ... and too many boards are permitting this behavior because they are inept or inert, or both. (a)".(Treasury Management)
February 1, 2004... That last phrase has a bite to it that would make any hospital trustee cringe--and react in ways that could make any executive feel uneasy. No board member I've ever met likes to be considered either inept or inert. A friend and...

Calendar.(Calendar)
February 1, 2004... CALENDAR Level Seminar 2/23-26 3/15-18 San Antonio New Orleans Financial Management/Reimbursement 2 Using...

Mark D. Wessel, FHFMA, CPA (Indiana Pressler Memorial Chapter).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Wessel has been appointed COO, Unity Healthcare, Lafayette, Ind. He had been director of finance, St. Vincent Hospital and Health System and St. Vincent Physician Network, Indianapolis.

Shaun Polke (Massachusetts Chapter).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Polke has been named director of finance, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, East Boston, Mass. Previously, he was a healthcare Consultant, Feeley & Driscoll, P.C., Boston.

Stacey A. Halderman-Harbst (Appalachian Chapter of Central Pennsylvania).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Halderman-Harbst has been appointed senior manager, health care and public services audit practice, KPMG LLP, Harrisburg, Pa. Formerly, she was director of financial reporting, Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries, Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Maureen Carson (First Illinois Chapter).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Carson has joined Fifth Third Bank, Rolling Meadows, Ill., as vice president, healthcare financial services. She had been director, healthcare advisory services, BDO Seidman, LLP, Chicago.

Linda J. Costlow, CHFP (Heart of America Chapter).(People)(pal lent financial services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Costlow has been appointed corporate assistant director, pal lent financial services, Truman Medical Centers. Kansas City, Mo. Previously, she was business office manager. Research Psychiatric Center, Kansas City, Mo.

Cindy Dennison (Northeast Ohio).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Dennison has been named controller, Lodi Community Hospital, Lodi, Ohio. Formerly, she was director, NHV/NGH financial services, Akron General Medical Center, Akron, Ohio.

Michael J. Etue (Florida Chapter).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Etue has joined Eclipsys Corporation, Boca Raton, Fla., as senior vice president of implementation services. He had been vice president. enterprise sales, Siemens, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Patricia H. Garrigan (Maryland Chapter).(People)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Garrigan has been named manager, assurance, KPMG, Baltimore. Previously, she was manager of reimbursement, Winchester Hospital, Winchester, Mass.

Jerry Gay (Virginia Chapter).(People)(Johnston Memorial Hospital appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Gay has been appointed controller, Johnston Memorial Hospital, Smithfield, N.C. He had been controller, Southside Regional Medical Center. Petersburg, Va.

Joy N. Glomski (Wisconsin Chapter).(People)(Horton Group appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Glomski has joined The Horton Group. Milwaukee, as client service representative. She had been client services representative, SEEK, Incorporated, Waukesha, Wis.

Kimberly Van Atta (Virginia Chapter).(People)(University of Virginia Health System appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Van Atta has been named manager of financial planning and analysis, University of Virginia Health System, Charlottesville, Va. Formerly, size was financial consultant, Sentara Healthcare, Norfolk, Va.

Siri Nelson (Northern California Chapter).(People)(Sutter Amador Hospital appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Nelson has been named CFO, Sutter Amador Hospital, Jackson, Calif. Previously, she was finance director/CFO, San Joaquin County's Health Care Services Ageney, Stockton, Calif.

James Peters (New Jersey Chapter).(People)(U.S. Physical Therapy Inc. appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Peters has been appointed director of billing and reimbursement, US Physical Therapy, Houston. He had been vice president of patient accounts, Kessler Rehabilitation Corporation, West Orange, N.J.

Richard L. Slater (West Virginia Chapter).(People)(Simpson & Osborne appointed)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Slater has been named partner in charge, Simpson & Osborne, A.C., Charleston, West Va. Formerly, he was principal and director of tax services, Ernst & Young, Charleston.

Carol Primavera Paris, CPA (Metropolitan Philadelphia Chapter).(People)(Certified Public Accountant)(Mercy Home Health Services)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Primavera Paris has been promoted from associate vice president, finance, to vice president, mission services, Mercy Home Health Services, Springfield, Pa.

Shawn Steffen (Iowa Chapter).(People)(Covenant Health System appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Steffen has joined Covenant Medical Center, Waterloo, Iowa, as hospital revenue cycle director. He had been director of patient accounts. access & medical records, Mary Greeley Medical Center, Ames, Iowa.

Nancy R. Strachan (Alabama Chapter).(People)(Thomas Hospital promotions)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Ms. Strachan has been named director, charge master/APC coordinator, Thomas Hospital, Fairhope, Ala. Previously, she was director, patient financial services, Thomas Hospital.

George D. Wiley (Kentucky Chapter).(People)(Georgetown Community Hospital appointments)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2004... Mr. Wiley has joined Georgetown Community Hospital, Georgetown, KY., as CFO. Previously, he was CFO, Castleview Hospital, Price, Utah.

Hospital operating margins decline in 2002.(Data Trends)
February 1, 2004... Following slight increases in 2000 and 2001, the average operating margins at U.S. hospitals declined in 2002 as hospitals adjusted to considerable external and internal pressures following September 11, 2001. The average operating margin...

IT as a strategic investment.(From The President)(Health care industry)
February 1, 2004... This statement was made by John Glaser, the CIO of Partners HealthCare in Boston (and a columnist for this magazine). In other words, IT investments should support the strategies of a healthcare organization and thus should be evaluated...