Healthcare workers deserve more than parties and snacks.
I was fulfilling my case management responsibilities in the hospital last week and thus like many others in healthcare was eating a lot of food from all the celebrations. Last week we honored nurse’s week and hospital week. The American Hospital Association has chosen this year to “focus on the caregivers that have taken on unimaginable challenges and have risen to the occasion by working the frontlines during the pandemic and are continuing to stay as we try to recover and heal.” This message is so fitting as May is also Mental Health Awareness month.
In between the celebrations, I listened to examples of staff adjusting to our current state of healthcare. An SW came into the office needing to process the events of needing to remove a patient’s belongings from his body bag in the morgue to help locate and contact his loved ones. Not a typical occurrence these days however she was overwhelmed by the last two years where she never thought she would be discharged planning the dead. A UR nurse was upset in our staff meeting because we were discussing the plans to return one of the UR assignments to the ED. Although the UR workload has returned to normal, she was overwhelmed having lost another employee on the team to work from home employment and was nervous about going into the ED environment, given the last 2 years.
A recent article was published in the Professional Case Management Journal by our very own Ellen Fink-Samnick discusses the collective occupational trauma and its impact on healthcare quality. The statistics are saddening in that 50 percent of nurses cited severe emotional toll related to staffing levels and workload intensity. Additionally, 75 percent of the healthcare workforce reported mental and physical exhaustion from the pandemic and almost half of the physicians are reporting burnout.
Recently, 5,000 nurses went on strike at Stanford’s hospitals requesting better pay, more staffing, and support for their mental health. Additionally, one-day nursing strikes have popped up across the country with signs saying ‘burned out and tired’. And I don’t think we have seen the last of this.
So, to the staff that came into our office, I could not fix their experience, but I could listen and allow space for their trauma, and grief, and give compassion and honor to their requests and needed time to heal. Although the week of food and treats is commendable, the bigger issue of ensuring safe work conditions for our healthcare workers is now a national crisis.
To all the health care workers on the frontlines and behind the scenes keeping everything running. I celebrate and honor you for your commitment to service. Cookies, snacks, and free lunch are not enough to say thank you and you deserve so much more!
To view this week’s survey about mental health awareness, click here.
References:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has published several new proposed rules regarding Medicare payments for 2025. In addition to updating payment rates,
EDITOR’S NOTE: Research input for this report was provided by Kate Choi, a junior at Brown University and a current government affairs intern at Zelis.
Please log in to your account to comment on this article.
Join Angela Comfort, DBA, MBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, as she presents effective strategies to strengthen collaboration between CDI, coding, and quality departments in acute care hospitals. Angela will also share guidance on implementing cross-departmental meetings, using shared KPIs, and engaging leadership to foster a culture of collaboration. Attendees will gain actionable tools to optimize documentation accuracy, elevate quality metrics, and drive a unified approach to healthcare goals, ultimately enhancing both patient outcomes and organizational performance.
Optimize your outpatient clinical documentation and gain comprehensive knowledge from foundational practices to advanced technologies, ensuring improved patient care and organizational and financial success. This webcast bundle provides a holistic approach to outpatient CDI, empowering you to implement best practices from the ground up and leverage advanced strategies for superior results. You will gain actionable insights to improve documentation quality, patient care, compliance, and financial outcomes.
Enhancing outpatient clinical documentation is crucial for maintaining accuracy, compliance, and proper reimbursement in today’s complex healthcare environment. This webcast, presented by industry expert Angela Comfort, DBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, will provide you with actionable strategies to tackle complex challenges in outpatient documentation. You’ll learn how to craft detailed clinical narratives, utilize advanced EHR features, and implement accurate risk adjustment and HCC coding. The session also covers essential regulatory updates to keep your documentation practices compliant. Join us to gain the tools you need to improve documentation quality, support better patient care, and ensure financial integrity.
This webcast, presented by Angela Comfort, DBA, RHIA, CDIP, CCS, CCS-P, a recognized expert with over 30 years of experience, offers essential strategies to improve outpatient clinical documentation integrity. You will learn how to enhance the accuracy and completeness of patient records by adopting best practices in coding and incorporating Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). The session also highlights the role of technology, such as EHRs and CDI software, in improving documentation quality. By attending, you will gain practical insights into ensuring precise and compliant documentation, supporting patient care, and optimizing reimbursement. This webcast is crucial for those looking to address documentation gaps and elevate their coding practices.
Dr. Ronald Hirsch provides critical details on the new Medicare Appeal Process for Status Changes for patients whose status changes during their hospital stay. He also delves into other scenarios of hospital patients receiving custodial care or medically unnecessary services where patient notifications may be needed along with the processes necessary to ensure compliance with state and federal guidance.
Healthcare organizations face complex regulatory requirements under the No Surprises Act and Price Transparency rules. These policies mandate extensive fee disclosures across settings, and confusion is widespread—many hospitals remain unaware they must post every contracted rate. Non-compliance could lead to costly penalties, financial loss, and legal risks. Join David M. Glaser Esq. as he shows you how to navigate these regulations effectively.
Protect your facility from unwanted audits! Join Becky Jacobsen, BSN, RN, MBS, CCS-P, CPC, CPEDC, CBCS, CEMC, and take a deep dive into both the CMS and AMA guidelines for reporting post operative pain blocks. You’ll learn how to determine if the nerve block is separately codable with real life examples for better understanding. Becky will also cover how to evaluate whether documentation supports medical necessity, offer recommendations for stronger documentation practices, and provide guidance on educating providers about documentation requirements. She’ll include a discussion of appropriate modifier and diagnosis coding assignment so that you can be confident that your billing of post operative pain blocks is fully supported and compliant.
During this RACmonitor webcast Dr. Ronald Hirsch spotlights the areas of the OIG’s Work Plan and the findings of their most recent audits that impact utilization review, case management, and audit staff. He also provides his common-sense interpretation of the prevailing regulations related to those target issues. You’ll walk away better equipped with strategies to put in place immediately to reduce your risk of paybacks, increased scrutiny, and criminal penalties.
Copyright © 2024 RACmonitor. Powered by MedLearn Media.
Happy National Doctor’s Day! Learn how to get a complimentary webcast on ‘Decoding Social Admissions’ as a token of our heartfelt appreciation! Click here to learn more →
👻Spooky Sale is Back!👻 Get 31% off all three Medlearn brands, using code SPOOKY24.
