One of my funniest memories from surveying was many years ago at a small DME company in the Midwest. The staff was pleasant and accommodating and had been well prepared for the survey. But for some reason (probably related to a co-worker’s retelling of a “bad” survey that she’d gone through), the staff was pretty nervous about the accreditation visit. I pride myself on NOT presenting an intimidating attitude, but the staff at this place thought I was the police, the IRS, and the guy in charge of the Inquisition rolled into one. I tried my best to put the staff at ease. At one point, I asked a customer service representative about how they conveyed information on the patient’s rights and responsibilities to new customers. She fumbled through a pretty good answer. I asked her if she could name one of the responsibilities and she answered that they need to inform the company if they move or if their insurance changes (a good answer). I asked her if she could name a right and she froze up. Finally, she took a deep breath and blurted out: “The right to remain silent”.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
Billing,
HME Accreditation Requirements,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Retail,
Delivery
You could write a book about “employee vs. contractor” pros, cons, legality, and operational efficiency. In fact, there are books written about that very subject. There are also lawyers who specialize in employment law who advise companies about how to structure their staffing around those two broad categories of staff. While accreditation organizations won’t delve into the legalities (that’s for the lawyers to do), accreditation standards DO in fact address both categories of staffing.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
Personnel Files,
HQAA Accreditation,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Quality Care,
Retail,
Delivery,
Clinical Respiratory Services,
Competence,
Customer Service,
Business Practices,
Surveys,
Equipment
A phrase we’re hearing a lot through this crisis and pandemic is “new normal”. As in, there’s a new normal out there that involves social distancing, wearing masks, working from home, restaurants and non-essential businesses closed or working limited hours, and on and on and on. Every person has had some aspect of their life changed in sometimes small, sometimes profound ways. Of course, this applies to medical equipment providers as much as anyone else.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Materials Management,
Physicians,
Avoiding Deficiencies,
Showroom,
Retail,
Delivery,
Warehouse,
Customer Service,
Marketing,
Infection Control
Many in the home medical equipment industry equate policy manuals to their accreditation inspections. And of course, these bulky tomes are certainly a large part of the accreditation and survey experience for every DME. Policy manuals serve as the road map for how work gets done within an organization, a set of rules for the organization, and the document that defines the structure, function, and philosophy of the organization. Let’s look at what a policy manual should contain and how it impacts not only accreditation, but also the overall day-to-day operation of an organization.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
HIPAA,
Security,
Personnel Files,
Quality Improvement,
Billing,
Renewing Accreditation,
Quality Standards,
HQAA Accreditation,
HME Accreditation Requirements,
Patient File Requirements,
Compliance,
Patient Privacy,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Materials Management,
Avoiding Deficiencies,
CMS,
Complaint Process,
Quality Care,
Showroom,
Retail,
Delivery,
Clinical Respiratory Services,
Oxygen,
Warehouse,
Safety Officer,
Competence,
Customer Service,
Disaster Preparedness,
Emergencies,
Business Practices,
Marketing
New employees who apply and secure jobs with durable medical equipment companies are often surprised to find out that they are being offered vaccinations to protect them against Hepatitis B. In fact, some new employees find it unsettling to learn that their new job offers this “benefit” because of increased exposure risk to this dreaded but somewhat misunderstood disease. Let’s dispel some myths and lay out the basic facts about the disease, its prevention, and why healthcare workers are being offered this vaccination.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
Personnel Files,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Delivery,
Business Practices
HQAA fields quite a few questions about ventilator care and whether or not the care is “clinical” in nature or non-clinical. It may be helpful to clarify some points about ventilator care and review the definition of clinical respiratory services.
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Topics:
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Ventilator Unit,
Quality Care,
AARC
It might surprise some readers to learn that there are enough rules and regulations, quirks and nuances, and potential problems to devote an entire blog article to a topic limited to “oxygen orders”. The fact is that oxygen orders are a complex enough issue to devote an article to, and more importantly, for your company to devote resources including training time --toward the goal of compliance.
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Topics:
Employee Training,
HME Accreditation Requirements,
Compliance,
Clinical Practice Guidelines,
Delivery,
Oxygen
