Fiesta Bowl Scandal:Nonprofit Board Expert Weighs In
April 17, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Boards, Leadership
by Michael Peregrine, Partner
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
In my opinion, the recent Fiesta Bowl controversy offers a valuable teaching moment for the children’s hospital board on its oversight obligations and, more importantly, on how to spot — and react to — “red flags.”
Michael Peregrine
I discuss this issue in the recent online edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
The board should understand that these kinds of things happen with uncomfortable regularity in the nonprofit sector, and that they serve to confirm for many the need for continued regulatory oversight of nonprofits and their boards by state and federal charities officials. College football bowls aren’t health care providers, but they’re nonprofit, tax exempt entities all the same!
Michael W. Peregrine is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP and is based in the firm’s Chicago office. Michael is recognized as one of the leading national practitioners in nonprofit corporate law. Michael is outside governance counsel to many prominent nonprofit corporations, including hospitals and health systems, voluntary health organizations, social service agencies and health insurance companies.
add a commentOmaha Increases ED Net Revenue by $1.25 Million Per Year
April 17, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Financial Viability
Leaders at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center (Omaha), concerned that facility E/M level of services distribution did not accurately reflect ED resources, agreed to an assessment by Clinical Coding Solutions (CCS). The assessment of their charging and coding process included a comprehensive review of 75 emergency department patient charts and itemized bills. The analysis identified opportunities to potentially increase revenue by implementing a facility E/M tool to accurately reflect resources expended and capture missed charges, specifically involving injections and infusions.
CHMC’s assessment identified an estimated increase in net revenue of $1.06 million and achieved $1.25 million. Children’s was also able to implement CCS coding analysis to achieve increased compliance and documentation of care. For example, CCS assisted the hospital by identifying undocumented infusion start and stop times and x-rays in which there was a failure to note which specific extremity was involved.
Clinical Coding Solutions’ methodology and algorithm for coding pediatric claims, helps participating hospitals perform more accurate and thorough coding of Emergency Department claims, Observation and Urgent Care claims coding services are available now as well. CHCA Owner Hospitals can receive a free onsite assessment, providing a complete and useful analysis of additional revenue opportunities. Two options are offered for participation in CCS services — outsourcing of claims coding or use of the proprietary tools by in-house staff. Participating hospitals pay CCS by number of claims, not by percent of revenue. CHCA Owner Hospitals who choose to participate through CHCA benefit from a pricing advantage and from administrative fees ultimately being returned as patronage dividends.
For more information about Clinical Coding Solutions, contact Edna Rindner (edna.rindner@chca.com).
add a commentCHCA Selects ECRI Institute PSO for Data Collection and Analysis
April 17, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : CHCA News
CHCA signed an agreement with ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization to provide patient safety services to the Child Health Patient Safety Organization, Inc. ECRI Institute PSO will support the Child Health PSO with a patient safety data collection and reporting system and by analyzing adverse events and other information from participating children’s hospitals and health systems.
Kate Conrad
Helping children’s hospitals achieve their mission of providing the safest and highest quality of care to America’s children is our top priority. We selected ECRI Institute PSO because of their extensive in analyzing patient safety data and for their development of practical information to help providers improve the process of delivering care.
– Kate Conrad, Vice President, Child Health Patient Safety Organization, Inc.
ECRI Institute PSO uses a Web-based patient safety reporting system to capture patient safety data in a standardized manner compatible with the common data formats published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and National Quality Forum (NQF) serious reportable events. ECRI Institute PSO supports numerous state-based PSO programs as well as hospitals, health systems, and other provider organizations nationwide.
For more information about Child Health PSO, contact Kate Conrad (kate.conrad@chca.com).
add a commentSteven Altschuler Talks CHOP Strategy
April 3, 2011
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Growth, Innovation, Leadership
(Note: Read article first for full information.)
Steven Altschuler
Q: In the Philadelphia Inquirer article, you talk about less revenue per patient as a reality in the current and future environment. What does that mean to your bottom line? Do you have additional revenue diversification strategies that you could share with other children’s hospital CEOs?
Steven Altschuler: As we look ahead, we must continue to plan for a number of challenges, including the uncertainty of health care reform; the growing demand for increased value; transparency and accountability; stricter and more regulated reimbursement models; the emergence of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) that manage individual health and wellness through team-based growth with less revenue. No one can actually predict what the future will bring, but we can anticipate, plan and act in order to influence and shape the future.
Q: Can you share any cost reduction initiatives to address lower revenue-per-patient realities?
Altschuler: We are seeing more patients and continuing to deliver high-quality care while dramatically improving our outcomes in terms of safety and quality of care. These are some of the defining aspects that make CHOP stand out. It is also clear to me that if we are to thrive in a new health care environment, we will have to focus on the cost of our services as much as we focus on quality and outcomes. We are beginning to see insurance companies building incentives into their reimbursement plans. I see this as a new trend that will likely impact where patients receive care based on cost of services.
As a children’s hospital, CHOP has a cost structure that tends to be higher in the market and it’s clear that to compete we will have to understand our costs more critically than we do today, so that we can develop new models that will lower our cost structure. Over the past two years, we have participated in meaningful cost reduction that has solidified the financial stability of this institution and it is critically important that we continue to manage costs appropriately.
Q: How do you retain the brand other than keeping the same treatment protocols and IT infrastructure? Is there a marketing awareness campaign, renaming the current brand with a CHOP affiliation or a strategy around having breadth and depth of services to compete locally and regionally?
Altschuler: We have worked very hard in recent years to streamline and instill consistency into our institutional branding, evolving both how we present ourselves visually, through logos, marks and images, and how we speak about our vast offerings to our numerous constituents.
Within the past two years we have rebranded both our research organization and our care network to better leverage the name of the institution. And we have introduced new partnerships such as “CHOP at Virtua,” fully leveraging the equity and awareness of our brand name. These evolutionary brand changes have been made to add clarity and consistency to our communications which we believe promotes stronger awareness and understanding of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia among our audiences.
While the majority of CHOP’s marketing efforts are multi-dimensional and targeted to current and potential referring clinical audiences nationally and internationally, we have recently begun advertising to consumers in our regional markets to increase awareness of our growing network presence (50 sites in the region) and luminary clinical programs which draw from across the country and around the globe. In addition, public relations and social media have become increasingly important components of our marketing mix, enabling us to both expand our presence and engage with audiences in new and impactful ways.
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