Revenue Cycle and Regulatory Compliance Flashcards
What is HIPAA?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This is a federal regulation that was designed to provide protection of confidentiality and security for patients. It was also the first rule that standardized patient confidentiality.
What is ARRA?
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
What is HITECH?
Health Information Technology For Economic and Clinical Health Act
What is the Stark Law?
This law prohibits physician referrals of designated health services for Medicare and Medicaid patients if the physician has a financial relationship with that entity.(immediate family member)
What is the OIG?
Office of Inspector General for the United States Department of Health and Human Services(HHS) is dedicated to fighting waste, fraud, and abuse and to improving the efficiency of Medicare and Medicaid by developing guidelines. They have a hotline or website.
What is The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act?
(FDCPA) Is a consumer protection amendment, establishing legal protection from abusive debt collection practices. Part of the Consumer Credit Protection Act, as Title VIII.
What is the False Claims Act?
It is a federal law that prohibits any person or organization to knowingly make a false record or file a false claim regarding any federal health care program.
What is ROI?
Release of Information
What is TPO?
Treatment, Payment, and Healthcare Operations
What is NCCI?
National Correct Coding Initiative, this program prevents coding errors that could lead to inappropriate reimbursement for Medicare claims.
What is Privacy?
It is the patient’s right to have their Protected Health Information(PHI) safe-guarded.
What is an Aging Report(AR)?
It is a report of outstanding claims. Claims that have not been paid 30 days or more. The report is divided into 30-day increments. You should work on the oldest accounts first.
What is Accounts Receivable?
It is money owed to the provider.
What is the key tool to collecting patient payments?
Communication
What is Security?
It is controlling access to records, protecting PHI, and giving efficient employee training.
When can you disclose PHI?
When the patient has signed an authorization.
What is Fraud?
The intentional misinterpretation of health information to receive higher reimbursement.
What is Abuse?
The un-intentional misinterpretation of health information to receive higher reimbursement.
What is the best practice when dealing with a Denial?
It is to perform an analysis to determine where the errors are occurring.
What should be done once your organization determines where the errors are occurring?
Additional training or workflow corrections should be implemented.
What is Revenue Cycle Management?
This is the process that health care providers use to manage financial viability by increasing revenue, improving cash flow, from registration to final payment.
Where does communication start?
It starts at the point of service, during registration and scheduling, where the information is gathered from the patient to create an account.
When is it important to communicate with the patient?
When notifying the patient of their financial responsibility.
Why should there be good communication between the provider and staff?
To ensure that medical record documentation meets the assigned code requirements for reporting purposes.
What are the primary Stakeholders?
Patients, Providers, Third-Party-Payers, and Policymakers.
What are Providers?
They are licensed individuals who can submit claims for services rendered for reimbursement. Providers administer the delivery of care within the policy framework. They also coordinate the patient’s care and maintain their health record.
What are Third-Party-Payers?
These are organizations that cover medical expenses of the policyholder and dependants. This includes employers, commercial or private organizations, government programs, Work comp, and homeowner/auto insurance.
What are Third-Party-Payers responsible for?
They maintain the financial stability of health care policies and programs. They have administrative processes to analyze premium rates and annual deductibles to meet changes.
What are Regulatory Agencies composed of?
Policymakers that develop the rules and guidelines.
What are policymakers?
They establish the framework that determines who is eligible to receive care and what services are provided, how, where, and by whom. They determine how services are paid and determine the quality of care standards for the patients.
What are Covered Entities?
This is an entity that transmits health information in electronic form(Providers, Health plans, Clearinghouses…)
How long should providers retain HIPAA-related documents?
They must keep records for 6 years and 2 years after a patient’s death. Medicare Managed Care patients medical records must be kept for 10 years.
What are the critical components of maintaining data?
Back-up & Recovery
What is the Practice Management System?
This is a collective source of administrative data within an organization.
What does the Practice Management System include?
Health care technological tools to perform operational tasks and the EHR components such as data from patient encounters. (demos, med records, insurance info, and coded data)
What is the Administrative Uses of Data?
This includes important operational tasks such as analyzing the number of patients for census purposes to determine how many patients are being treated, population health management, quality improvement, and cost vs. reimbursement analysis.
What are Clinical Uses of Data?
This is used to maintain the health and well-being of the population. This data can be used to determine cost-effectiveness, reimbursement decisions, and strategies.