HomeTown Spring Meeting April 19-21 was a tremendous success!
(Click here to be redirected to our wikispaces page where the Spring Meeting presentations have been posted.)
With the largest attendance ever to a HomeTown Meeting (approximately 170), the agenda flowed well and was very strong. A few of the points made by the various speakers include:
Rep Channell-
1) Your grass roots efforts worked extremely well
2) Next year has a possibility of being a worse nightmare than this in terms of budget shortfall
3) Budget will not get any prettier
4) Tighten your belts a lot more
Senator Johnson-
1) Grass roots may the most important thing a rural hospital CEO can manage
2) Next census will rob rural Georgia of at least one senator and several representatives and possibly one congressman
3) Provider Tax was DOA in his opinion in senate from the start
Michele Madison-
1) Stimulus package will generate many rural hospital opportunities in EMR
2) HIPAA through stimulus will become a much more aggressive enforcement arm
3) Have an attorney- client relationship for all of these OIG/RAC/MAC matters before hand because they do not work after the fact
Cahaba-
1) It's real and will happen on schedule
2) Lots of communication will have to occur for it to work
3) They complimented HomeTown Health in its outreach program as seeing nothing else like it anywhere
RAC’s-
1) A very sobering presentation to sit through
2) They are auditors and will be following the Federal manuals to the letter
3) They are numbers of people and have little sympathy for errors or fluff and stuff
4) They will be overseen by CMS as CMS continually checks quality of services
CMS-
1) We have purchased a quality program and will proceed to oversee it sufficiently to ensure that it stays on its mission and that is to collect any and all identifiable overpayments or mis-payments to providers
Inmate population offloads to hospitals-
1) Have a policy that everybody knows
2) Never let a patient into your hospital without trackable documentation back to the sheriff
3) Every case is different and deserves an individual legal review
4) When the patient enters your facility your hospital assumes the liability for any catastrophic events that may occur so be tough on your registration protocol for inmates.
a. Rusty Ross ( Morris, Manning & Martin) pointed out "the last thing you want is an inmate breaking loose and killing a hospital patient or worker so be thorough with and have a very aggressive protocol for handling one of these episodes
b. Always be proactive quickly instead of letting it drag on. Do not wait to engage the experience of Morris, Manning & Martin
Carie Summers-
1) Outlined ICTF distribution and discussed the problem with Private hospitals being reduced because Rockdale was status changed from Public to private which dropped non-deemed hospitals down by 16%
2) Next year’s budget can be a larger nightmare than ever
3) FMAP increases through the stimulus package only last for a couple of years then they revert back to 65% or so creating a huge hole to fill in funding.
Dale Gibson-
1) Regarding RAC’s Florida thought they were ready but they got clobbered. He reiterated again that it is CRITICAL to do everything possible to get ready for RAC’s
2) The impacts of RAC’s will be huge and overhead burdensome on a good day. Thus for those who have not fully prepared for this it will be a processing nightmare
LEAN Processing-
1) With funding to help hospitals improve many various processes the Ga. Tech LEAN team has chosen 7 hospitals to improve processing
2) Their process improvement is all about cutting waste – whether in time, dollars or human resources
3) Fairview has adopted LEAN at the front end triage and registration and have totally revamped the registration protocol and the savings have been phenomenal
4) Hospitals not willing to make drastic cultural change need not apply.
5) Savings potentials and parties satisfaction increase are huge
Potter Holden-
1) Get a RAC’s Insurance policy. If it is going to be as bad as they say it is, every hospital needs to look at being insured for RAC’s Liabilities.
2) Potter Holden announced that they have a policy that they can now quote you given a little bit of information.
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HomeTown Health’s Accomplishments of 2008
A 2008 Year in Review
Meetings and Events
CEO Day at the Capitol – Feb 2008
Legislative Session
HB1234
SB 660
CFO / BOD Workshop – Silver Bullet Meeting
March 2008
Business Partner Networking Conference
Lake Blackshear – March 2008
Case Mgr – Nurse Executive Workshop
June 08 - “Where Financial & Clinical Intersect”
2008 Spring Stakeholders Meeting
St. Simons – April 2008
HPG Conference in Chicago – July 2008
Technology Day in Macon –Aug 2008
3-day Business Office Director Boot Camp –
Lake Blackshear – Aug 2008
CAH Conference in Dublin – Sept 08
Carie Summers Hospital Tour & Round Table
Evans, Tattnall, Appling, Liberty, Jeff Davis, Effingham – Sept 15-16, 2008
NRHA Conference– Savannah
Rural Hospital Network Group Kickoff – Oct 2008
GA Rural Remote Pharmacists Network
Start up funded by SHIP grant – Aug 08
Over 100 Hospital visits in 2008
Education
12 Monthly Medicare Updates & Training
RAC’s, HAC’s.MAC’s, PEPPER, Section 1011, Bad Debt Reporting, New Observation Rules, New ABN, MSP Audits, New Medicare Discharge & Appeal Regs, Latest Reimbursement news from Dale Gibson
6 week series on RAC’s Preparation
12 Monthly Medicaid Updates
Updates on FFS, CMO’s changes, HB 1234 Implementation
HTHU.net – Online New Employee Orientation and Annual Staff Education
TY COBB Pilot – Huge Success
Expanded to 10 other hospitals
3 New Certifications
Patient Access Specialists Certification
Billing Certification
Materials Mgmt Certification
BRAND NEW-OPATH.net
Physician Practice education
CME Accredited training for Physicians
Telemedicine Network – now Georgia Telehealth
Board of Directors
Expansion of Video Education for Rural Docs
Jack Chapman – President of MAG – endorsement
Added HomeTown Health Positions
Two new HTH positions:
Director of Communications – Jennifer York
Director of IT / Technical Services – Kristy Thomson
Educating Executive Leaders
Executive Leadership Program – Class of 2008
CEO Day / Leadership Challenge by Kirk McGee
Compliance Law Overview
Managed Care Update - BCBS
Draffin & Tucker - 2 Day Cost Reporting Workshop
Leading Change – Phil Bowers – Spring Mtg.
Lake Oconee- 2 Day - Board Communications, Setting Personal & Professional goals
Leading with Technology – Technology Day