Healthcare Business Today

Your leading source for best practices across the healthcare spectrum

Get Ready for a Successful Health Plan Audit

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By Shanti Wilson, MBA, PMP

The word “audit” can bring up uneasy feelings and sighs among those who work in health care. As this article highlights, with the right preparation, audits can become routine.

Depending on which types of patients you serve, your health plan may be audited by many regulatory entities. These can include the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), your state’s Medicaid department, managed care agencies and more. Your compliance department should be notified when an audit will be conducted. If you do not have a compliance department, your point of contact will typically be in your C-Suite, such as your CEO or CFO.

Your preparation for your audit can be broken into three distinct areas:

  1. Pre-Onsite Visit
  2. On-site Visit
  3. Post-On-site Visit

[Read more…]

Follow the Supply Chain to a Greener Future

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By Cindy Juhas

Sustainability is a hot topic for many businesses, and with hospitals contributing 8 percent of the total national carbon footprint the healthcare industry has increasingly championed sustainable practices.  However, despite broad support within hospitals and healthcare facilities, the implementation of sustainable practices across the board can be difficult especially when it comes to equipment purchasing.

Decision-makers often endorse sustainable policies, but a misalignment between policy-makers and the professionals who negotiate and execute purchasing is all too common in the industry. While healthcare supply chain professionals are experts at juggling client needs, if sustainability has not been made a top priority, the green products they should be sourcing can lose out to other considerations such as size, price and maintenance concerns.

These missed opportunities can impact patients and facility staff in both great and small ways, and the power that supply chain managers wield in reducing environmental harm – as well as increasing the longevity of a product lifespan, which can prove more profitable over time – should not be overlooked. [Read more…]

The State of Investment Management and the Role Millennials Will Play

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Investment management according to the business encyclopedia is the act of buying and selling investment with a specific objective in mind. It refers to activities done over a portfolio that include but not limited to trading of securities, bonds, real estate and shares. It also entails the art of budgeting, banking, and paying taxes as well. Investment management has other names: private banking, portfolio management, and money management.

Managing one’s investments requires a specified goal in mind that investors or a group of investors wish to meet. Those taking part can be a group of individuals, for example, Diamond and Diamond lawyers, who want to increase their wealth or institutions that hire fund managers to advice on investment choices that whole entities, for example, pension funds or insurance companies, and can benefit from taking part. Fund managers, in that case, would offer financial analysis, asset allocation, provide a selection of stock options to the client and keep an eye on current investment. For execution to take place, a fund manager or investment manager has to work with individuals or entities to understand their goals, plan accordingly and manage both tangible and intangible investments. [Read more…]

How the Cloud Delivers a Faster, Simplified Transition to Electronic Device History Records

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By Srivats Ramaswami

Just as hospital procedures and healthcare practices must be documented and audited to protect patients, the manufacture of medical devices requires stringent record-keeping to ensure quality, safety and regulatory compliance. Whether it be an X-ray machine, patient monitor or implanted medical device, ensuring that these devices are produced according to the latest specifications not only prevents costly recalls but also safeguards the health and safety of the patients who use them.

An electronic device history record (eDHR) allows manufacturers to collect and manage critical records required by the FDA to document the production of each device. By automating the data collection process for device history records, a device maker can more confidently achieve compliance with FDA current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) requirements.

Bringing together all information about a device’s manufacturing and testing history, the eDHR tracks data to ensure the documented manufacturing process was followed. This includes the requirement that all components and materials approved for assembly into the product were the ones actually used, all tests passed, and that all workers involved in the manufacturing and testing processes were trained and certified on the required operations. [Read more…]

Providing Mental Health Services to Limited English Proficiency Patients

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By David Fetterolf

Mental health is incredibly important to overall health, preservation, and happiness. An untreated mental disorder can affect someone’s relationships, work performance, and even physical health. In order to treat and manage mental health illnesses and disorders, patients and providers must communicate effectively. In fact, it is almost impossible to diagnose and treat mental illness without effective patient/provider communication.

So what happens to mental health patients who do not speak English? How can someone suffering from anxiety, depression, or a host of other mental disorders describe their symptoms if they do not speak the same language as their doctor? Unfortunately, limited English proficiency (LEP) patients suffer when it comes to accessing mental health services, with studies showing that LEP patients generally have less access than their English speaking counter-parts. They also undergo a longer duration of time with untreated disorders. (1)

In order for healthcare providers to effectively treat this marginalized group of mental health patients, medically qualified interpretation must be provided. [Read more…]

Commercial Leasing Tips for Healthcare Tenants

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By Jeff Grandfield and Dale Willerton 

For many healthcare tenants, negotiating a good lease or lease renewal against an experienced agent or landlord can be a challenge. While a doctor focuses on proper patient care, savvy real estate agents and brokers are specialized sales people. Their job is to sell tenants on leasing their location at the highest possible rental rate.

As explained in our new book, Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals FOR DUMMIES, tenants may go through the leasing process only two or three times in their entire lifetime – yet they have to negotiate against seasoned professionals who negotiate leases every day for a living. Negotiating appropriate leasing terms is vital for a doctor as the amount of rent he pays will directly affect the practice’s financial bottom line. [Read more…]

Michael Haghighi – A Doctor You Can Trust

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A highly competent family practitioner, a caring husband and father, and a selfless volunteer – this is what characterizes Michael Haghighi, the owner/operator of Haghighi Sports & Family Medicine. The clinic has two locations: Jacksonville, Florida and Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Also, Dr. Haghighi is affiliated with the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Southside in Jacksonville, FL.

Q: Hello Dr. Haghighi! Thank you for agreeing to meet. I’m sure you are very busy as a family practitioner. Does this mean that you provide treatment for the whole family?

A: Thank you for inviting me. You are right, I’m plenty busy, we see between 30-50 patients each day. However, I understand how important it is to tell more about yourself when you are a doctor. Patients have a right to know more about who they will confide in for their current medical problems, symptoms and who will prescribe their medication.

Yes, our clinic is family oriented. This means that we take care of all family members. We care for people of all ages and backgrounds. We are focused on building personal patient-physician relationships that will help patients to be more comfortable and more open during their visits. This will help us to determine the identity of a disease much faster. [Read more…]