DECK 9 Flashcards
Sum of all costs required whether any patients or not.
Amount assumed fixed for the analysis
Fixed Cost
- This falls into two categories: routine preventive maintenance & repair of equipment malfunctions
- Should be centralized either through biomedical departments or contracted outside vendors
Equipment Maintenance
As in fixed non-movable equipment, grouping similar capital equipment by type or manufacturer is a good way to affect cost saving.
Capital Equipment Selection
Evaluating the use of technology throughout the organization is a valuable way to move toward standardization and is also a way to limit unnecessary purchases of unproven and expensive new equipment.
Technology assessment
Areas that often overlooked, but can serve as significant sources of savings include:
Contracted Labor
Consulting agreements
Contracted services such as lawn maintenance and snow removal
Purchased Service
The Robinson-Patman Act prohibits sellers from engaging in what is commonly called “price discrimination.” Violations of the Robinson-Patman Act carry both civil and criminal penalties. Potential violation of the act involve certain occurrences that take place during a sale of a product.
Robinson-Patman Act
To invoke the act, the following conditions must occur:
- The sale must involve a “commodity”-a product not a service.
- A seller much charge different prices to different purchasers for goods that are of “ like grade and quality”
- At least one of the sales much cross a state line, and all of the goods much be used for consumption or resale in the United States or one of its territories.
- The sales compared must be within the same approximate time period.
- The alleged price discrimination must be of the type that presents a potentially substantial injury to competition.
Conditions of sales
Sellers must justify price differentiation based on changing conditions affecting the market or the marketability of goods.
- Sellers can avoid liability by establishing that the alleged discriminatory low prices are necessary to “meet”, not to “beat”, the competitor’s price for directly competitive products.
- The volume of goods purchased by Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) that receive volume price discounts is not affected by the Robinson -Patman’s prohibitions on price discrimination.
Legitimate Pricing differences
published in the Federal Register July 20, 1991 is an amendment to the 1972 Medicare Fraud and Abuse Statute.
Safe Harbor Act
The knowing and willful solicitation, receipt, offer to pay, or payment of remuneration in return for referral of Medicare patients.
-The knowing and willful payment of ,or receipt of, remuneration to induce the purchase of goods or services paid for by Medicare/Medicaid
Violations of the Safe Harbor Act
Payment or exchanges pursuant to warranties provided by manufactures or suppliers are exempt from the Safe Harbor Statute if certain requirements are met. One set of standards applies to manufacturers or suppliers and the other set applies to buyers.
Payments and exchanges pursuant to warranties
Quality Processes include
- Setting goals
- Providing departmental infrastructure
- Providing necessary resources
- Making sure upper management is involved in the quality process
12 Steps to Strategic Planning
Identify the customer Determine the customer's needs. Develop distinguishing product features Establish quality goals Produce the needed product features Process capability Identify measures and control Measurements and standard of performance Identify variance Identify challenges Monitor processes for success Keep the process ongoing
Strategic Planning Implementations includes:
- specific goals
- objectives
- strategies
includes benchmarking
- analysis of process flow
- operational needs assessments
- customer surveys
- focus groups
Performance Improvement (PI)
