Tom Syzek, MD, FACEP, served as the Chief Risk Officer of a multi-specialty physician group and President of the group’s captive insurance company. In those roles, he was the focal point for the Communication and Resolution Program (CRP); he attributes many prevented lawsuits to an effective communication and resolution strategy. We picked Tom’s brain to understand some key questions that we hear clients ask about Communication & Resolution Programs.
Pain management in the acute care setting (ED, Urgent Care, office) has once again catapulted to the top of the list of hot topics. Years ago the conversation centered on recognizing pain as a “fifth vital sign” and navigating the tricky crossroad of patient satisfaction and the provision of timely, sufficient pain medication. In the Emergency Department, I witnessed every extreme of practitioner and patient behavior.
As we begin 2017, we asked Michigan Professional Insurance Exchange’s Vice President of Risk and Client Services, Margaret Curtin, MPA, HCA, CPHRM, DFASHRM, CPCU, to share her insight on being successful in the industry and on direction of the industry.
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As practitioners, we like to think our charm and skills are so valuable that no patient would possibly consider leaving the ED or hospital against our sage medical advice!
However, no matter how hard we try or how fast we work, a few patients will always choose to leave before an evaluation is complete—and against medical advice (AMA). Available data shows that about 1.2% of ED patients leave AMA.
When creating a loss prevention program, obstetrics (OB) is a logical place to focus. It tends to be one of the riskiest specialties in medicine. Here we’ll highlight the research that points to why OB remains a focal point of organizational leadership and discuss the three attributes a loss prevention program in OB should have.
One of the most difficult hurdles to overcome during the defense of a malpractice suit is a significant discrepancy in the medical record. The discrepancies may involve the nurses, physicians, advanced practice clinicians, EMS personnel, and any records related to the patient. Often, a discrepancy may be nothing more than a minor difference in terminology; but the cases reviewed here reveal serious discrepancies between the physician and the nurse chart in the first case and the physician and EMS record in the second case.
In a previous posting, “The Ultimate Loss Prevention Strategy: 4 Key Areas of Allocating Your Risk Management Budget,” we highlighted the importance of addressing Diagnosis-Related Adverse Events. As an extension of that article, Dr. Tom Syzek and I provide further detail for justifying that recommendation and the recent data surrounding diagnostic errors, after which we will outline three key attributes of successful initiatives that have led to positive results.
Patient experience is an area of healthcare that has a significant impact not only on an organization’s reimbursement, but also on a hospital’s professional liability (HPL) and exposure to litigation. As a result of recent regulatory changes from the Affordable Care Act, it appears that hospitals have become even more judicious in their allocation of resources to various internal initiatives. With this in mind, let’s explore recent evidence that supports a rational, targeted approach for impacting HCAHPS that should lead to an improvement in reimbursement and reduction in liability.
As the healthcare industry constantly evolves and “return on investment” remains a focus, it is becoming more imperative that risk managers allocate their budgets in areas that have the greatest impact on mitigating claims and litigation.
Fortunately, The Sullivan Group has the luxury of working with many large, sophisticated, self-insured hospital systems as well as smaller single-site facilities and physician groups. This experience has helped us identify four key areas that an organization should consider when developing its loss prevention strategy.
We've featured a variety of topics, cases, and missed diagnoses on our blog this year, and we hope that you've found the content useful and relevant.
In case you missed some of 2016's most popular posts, here are the top 10 articles from the blog this year, according to our website visitor statistics. What was your favorite article?
