With healthcare financing on everyone’s mind this week, I thought it appropriate to cast the spotlight on the Business Office and Departments of Auditing and Collections, as they are the ones responsible for making sure that patients are billed and the hospital is paid for its service to the community.

It is the role of the Business Office to process all patient accounts in a timely manner while ensuring that they comply with both state and federal regulations. The Business Office works to assist the hospital staff with financial issues, including electronic billing for all inpatient, outpatient, and emergency room accounts that are covered by insurance, hard copies and itemized bills when requested, as well as mailing out complete medical records when appropriate.

The Collections Department oversees both the collection of patient debt and the monitoring of patient’s insurance and financial class, including submitting first level of appeal for denied claims and insurance issues.

Tasked with reviewing each patient’s chart against his or her itemized bill, the Auditing Department is responsible for making sure that every patient receives a true and accurate assessment of his or her hospital stay. Processing from 30 to 40 audits per week, the auditor identifies, tracks documents, and corrects patient bills in a continued effort to always keep the hospital in compliance.

Together, the Billing Office, Auditing, and Collections work tirelessly to keep us functioning as a hospital. Their keen eyes and financial acumen continue to make them a vital part of our organization.

As a result of recent decreases in the number of reported H1N1 cases, the World Health Organization (the “WHO”) will shortly meet to assess whether H1N1 has indeed peaked at last. Keiji Fukuda, the special adviser to the WHO’s director general for pandemic influenza states that “while the flu continues to spread in parts of the world, notably northern Africa, eastern Europe and eastern Asia, infection activity is declining.”

The committee is set to decide whether the pandemic has entered a post-peak or transition phase, which would indicate that though the pandemic is continuing, the overall trend is back toward seasonal patterns of influenza.

Since the virus was first acknowledged in Mexico and the U.S. last April, there have been more than 15,000 lab confirmed deaths from H1N1. My thanks go out to everyone at Coast Plaza for their continued professionalism in the face of this lengthy epidemic.

An integral part of the Coast Plaza team, our Human Resources Department provides for the personnel needs and legal requirements of the Hospital. With such a varied collection of responsibilities, the HR Department acts as primary liaison between management and staff within the following areas:

• Communicates conditions of employment to employees and management to safeguard the consistency required to provide the best care possible to patients and visitors.
• Communicates benefits of employment to employees and management to ensure effective utilization.
• Maintains copies of current licensure/certification.
• Provides a mechanism for ensuring that all employees are periodically evaluated on their competency/performance, per written job descriptions and clinical competency (as applicable).
• Assists management and employees in the employment process, including physical examinations provided by the Hospital’s employee health service.
• Issues identification badges, including picture, name and job classification to all employees. Enforces a policy to ensure that badges are visible to all patients, visitors, and staff members.
• Counsels employees and management on employment-related issues.
• Participates in staff and management education to ensure adherence to Hospital, State and Federal regulations, as well as to all other appropriate regulatory agencies.
• Functions as a resource to management in the discipline/guidance process when staff performance standards are not met.

It is largely thanks to Human Resources that we are able to function as a team and communicate our needs to one another in a professional manner so that the hospital may continue to serve its patients with maximum quality and efficiency.

Let’s face it, it is no easy task to work in a high pressure hospital environment. With lives at stake on a regular basis, the work we do here at Coast Plaza is not only essential to our community, it is also full of daily surprises. We are constantly striving to serve our patients with professionalism and respect. But such a level of respect should not be reserved for patients alone. As fellow employees, we owe that same debt to one another.

When the potential for chaos lurks around every corner, it is of utmost importance to keep order in the workplace. It goes without saying that all public areas, including the cafeteria, should be kept free of debris, equipment, and personal items so that we can all unwind during our breaks throughout the day. Doing so has a positive effect not only on our collective efficiency as a hospital, but also on each individual state of mind. This is our hospital. We are proud of it. We share it. We must work together to take care of it and keep it clean.