Posts tagged with "hospitals"

PANAMA RANKS AS NO.1 RETIREMENT DESTINATION

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In accordance with International Living’s 31st Annual Global Retirement Index, Panama has been named the world’s #1 destination for 2022. This Index, produced in accordance with numerous statistics and on-the-ground input from in-country correspondents, ranks and rates the world’s leading retirement locations. The index surveys 10 major categories that include cost of living, retiree benefits, healthcare and more.

Panama snatches the top spot in InternationalLiving.com’s 2022 Annual Global Retirement Index. Panama capped the categories of opportunity, visa/ residency and benefits/ discounts, while scoring at the top amongst the fitting in and healthcare categories.

For such a small country, Panama is truly emerging – this marks the 11th time that Panama has dominated in International Living’s Annual Global Retirement Index, for all the right reasons.

In 2022, Panama ranks as one of the simplest retirement destinations for travel from the United States or Canada. Panama City, the capital of Panama, is the one true First World city in Central America. Easy access to Panama from all over the U.S. increases the flexibility for travel, with several one-way flights available across the U.S., and cities in Canada and Europe. The modernity of Panama is only a short three hours from Miami, and five hours from New York. Not to mention, the currency is also the U.S. dollar!

Jessica Ramesch, the International Living Panama editor reflects on her experience in the country, stating, “as a single woman I feel safe and free to live my life here, whether I’m going out to dinner and Ubering home late at night or driving cross-country to visit friends. Perhaps that’s because this is truly a land of opportunity, home to thousands of hard-working, upwardly mobile locals and immigrants.”

Ramsech continues her advocation for Panama, touching on the accessibility, indulgences, and credibility of the country. She states, “My favorite spot right now is Coronado, a happening beach town just an hour’s drive from the capital. In fact, I like it so much I bought an apartment there, and am packing up to move. Coronado is home to one of Panama’s most active and welcoming expat communities. I’m not even there yet, and I’m already getting invites to potlucks and happy hours.”

No matter where retirees choose to live in Panama, Ramesch says, they’re likely to be only an hour away from hospitals. In Coronado there’s access to the San Fernando facility. It’s a satellite of the San Fernando in Panama City—a JCI-accredited hospital affiliated with the Miami Children’s Hospital, Baptist Health International of Miami, and Tulane University Health Services Center and Hospital Clinic.

“Panamanian doctors make patients feel truly cared for,” says Ramesch. “They don’t rush through appointments, and they’ll often give you their cell phone number so you have direct access to them while you’re going through treatment or recovery.

“In fact, I’d say Panamanians in general are the best part of living in Panama. I have made so many wonderful friends here. People who are welcoming and fun and have a wide range of interests, so the conversation is always engaging.”

According to International Living, one of the most attractive features of living in Panama stems from the Pensionado program suitable for retirees.

Ramesch declares her support for the program, declaring, “the Pensionado program is, hands down, the best retirement visa program in the world. It’s a big reason Panama has taken the number one spot on International Living’s Annual Global Retirement Index so many times.”

Part of the reason for why Panama continues to steal those number one spots is due to the discounts that retirees with this visa have access to. The program makes it exceptionally simple – and inexpensive – to become a permanent legal resident. All of Panama’s legal residents are permitted to 20% off prescription medications if they’re of “pensioner” age. The base age is remarkably low, too – just 55 for women, 60 for men.

The Pensionado advantages expand to other discounts on dental care and transportation. Other leisure’s such as entertainment and hotel stays are available at low-cost rates, too.

Applicants with income of at least $1,000 a month qualify for the Pensionado program, and once you’re approved, you can appreciate all of the reductions.

“If you’d like to apply with your spouse, you can qualify with less than $1,000 each. You can even include dependents if you need to,” says Ramesch. “You just need a pension of at least $1,000 plus $250 for each additional person on your application.

“The $1,000 pension requirement reflects the low cost of living here in Panama. While it’s true that most of the North Americans who’ve chosen to retire here spend upwards of $2,000 a month, there are expats living here on far less.”

There are great areas in Panama that have rent prices as low as $300 to $500 a month, leaving extra money for retirees to spend elsewhere.

For those not 100% ready to make the permanent move just yet, Panama has a variety of alternatives for legal residency.

“The country has just unveiled a new extended-stay visa for digital-nomad types: The Temporary Telework Visa,” Ramesch says. “It allows you to come down and stay here—not for three months or even six, but for nine months. And you can extend for an additional nine months. That’s a generous total of 18 months, and the main requirements are simple: you must have medical insurance and an external source of income (at least $3,000 a month).”

Panama, too, has a “Foreign Professionals” Visa that has been available for over eight years. It allows foreign nationals to work in Panama, with easy requirements; you need a university education and a job arranged in Panama.

Though Panama ranks at the top in this year’s Annual Global Retirement Index, there are 25 other countries that were evaluated in the 10 categories used for judging, including; housing, benefits/ discounts, visa/residence, cost of living, fitting in/ entertainment, healthcare, development, climate, opportunity and governance. The full index country rankings for the year of 2022 can be found HERE.

Nursing Home Staff Shortages

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Amidst the perseverance of the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare industry has taken a massive blow. There are intense staffing shortages in the field, and the public is suffering from these scarcities. The Washington Post gave a detailed report on these worsening staff deficiencies, more specifically in long term care facilities.

Nursing homes tend to lessen the stress on hospitals as recovered patients typically move there after being released. Without proper staffing, though, facilities have not been able to take in patients from hospitals. A specific example of this misfortune stems from the Terrace View nursing home in Buffalo, New York. The home is currently not running at full capacity, and there are up to 22 beds not being used due to lack of staff.

The Washington Post article elaborates on this disaster, highlighting another facility affected. “That means some fully recovered patients in the adjacent Erie County Medical Center must stay in their hospital rooms, waiting for a bed in the nursing home. Which means some patients in the emergency department, who should be admitted to the hospital, must stay there until a hospital bed opens up. The emergency department becomes stretched so thin that 10 to 20 percent of arrivals leave without seeing a caregiver — after an average wait of six to eight hours, according to the hospital’s data.”

Many long-term care facilities across the country are facing these same troubles. The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) found 58% of nursing homes are cutting down on arrivals, again, because of the shortage of staff members.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that 425,000 long term care workers left the industry since February 2020. Though other industries have seen economic growth since the onset of the pandemic, nursing homes have not had the same luck. “Remarkably, despite the horrific incidents of death and illness in nursing homes at the outset of the pandemic, more staff departures have come during the economic recovery. As restaurants and shops reopened and hiring set records, nursing homes continued to bleed workers, even as residents returned.”

These troubles are heightened in more rural areas. The article, too, depicts the story of Diakonos Group in Medford, Oklahoma, that had to shut down since there was simply not enough staff. The facility provided care for patients with mental health needs, but after the pandemic started, they found that their staff had endured too much. Diakonos Group CEO Scott Pilgrim explained that although the business offered a raise in hourly wages, bonuses and overtime, employees continued to leave, and they could not withstand these absences.

AHCA/NCAL urges lawmakers to work with the long term care division of healthcare to fix this staffing crisis and devote resources to employ caregivers. As hospitals continue to be directly affected by this catastrophe, change must be made as soon as possible. AHCA/NCAL encourages Congress to take action and ease these tensions placed on both hospitals and long term care facilities.

6 Proactive Ways a Hospital Billing Company Can Maximize Your Revenue Collection

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By MedcareMSO

The federal government has brought about a lot of changes in the US healthcare system since the past few years. These changes have introduced a lot of challenges for providers and patients alike. Many aspects of healthcare reform including; the introduction of more time-consuming, value-based compensation models and the frequent alterations to hospital medical billing rules and regulations can cause a significant range of revenue loss for providers across the United States.

Therefore, if providers fail to stay up-to-date on hospital billing rules and regulations result in providers leaving approximately $125 billion in uncollected revenue each year. Specialty practitioners like radiologists face even greater difficulties due to the complexity of their billing procedures.

Simultaneously, patients can’t afford increasingly expensive healthcare services due to high-deductible plans. Therefore, hospitals should partner with a reliable hospital billing company that can help them guide them strategies to help them encounter these challenges.

How can a hospital billing company help you over hurdles?

Let’s paint a dismal picture of the financial health of the industry with authentic data paints. It would help providers to analyze their reimbursement models and mitigate practice financial issues and compliance risks. In this article, I have enlisted 6 proactive ways that can help providers to take a proactive approach to maximize their revenue generation.

1. Prepare a Clear Collections Process

All practices require a collection process to ensure the financial health of their medical business. They should establish a step-by-step procedure that clarifies the procedure for all. It can greatly improve revenue cycles by ensuring patients are properly and thoroughly aware of their responsibilities.

2. Focus on Claim Management Properly

According to a recent study, 80% of claims are rejected due to errors yearly. Due to the strict policies of insurance companies about accurate medical billing and coding practices, they are likely going to end up being rejected. Therefore, practitioners should prepare claim management that focuses on streamlining each step with 100% focus on the cycle of submission, rejection, editing and resubmission can take weeks. It often results in providers waiting for months prior to receiving payment for their services.

3. Minimize Coding Errors

Medical coders describe the performed medical procedures within a claim using standardized medical codes. It makes the claims easy to understand and proceed for further levels. These codes can use ICD-10_CM, CPT and HCPCS Level II classification systems. This process provides a standard method of describing procedures. However, a hospital billing specialist can ensure that the claim is prepared with less or no error. So it can be reimbursed for the first time without wasting the times and efforts of the whole team. Most importantly, if you partner with a reliable hospital billing company then their certified employees can ensure that your claims are not filed with out-to-date, mismatched, incorrect or missing codes. Because when these mistakes are identified by the clearinghouses then they deny such erroneous claims before they can become an issue for payers.

4. Promptly Follow-up on Denied or Rejected Claims

Before diving into details, let’s establish the difference between a rejected claim and a denied claim.

Rejected Claim: A rejected claim is one that hasn’t been processed yet due to the existence of one or more errors. It hinders the insurance company from paying the bills as it is written.

Denied Claim: A denied claim is a claim that the insurance company has processed and has considered unplayable due to the discovery of a violation of the payer- patient contract or due to the identification of vital errors caught after processing the claim.

In both of these scenarios, the payer will return the claim to the biller without paying any amount with an explanation of the problem. If you have the best hospital billing company on your side then you can rectify and resubmit your claims. But remember that a denied claim is appealed prior to resubmission. Consequently, it is a much more costly and time-consuming process.

Therefore, it is essential to check for errors in a claim to minimize the occurrence of rejections and denials. However, if such errors occur then make sure that they are handled as quickly as possible. Here comes the profitable aspect of a dedicated hospital billing company that consistently keeps in touch with the representatives of the payer.

Hence, they can help clarify problems with the original claims and provide information on current claims as they are processed. All of these endeavours would result in the expedition of the claim editing process, minimize appeals and resubmission times. Hence, it would save your practice sufficient time so you can invest your time and efforts in providing quality care services.

5. Improve Operational Capabilities

The healthcare field is constantly changing, therefore, hospitals should follow suits to maximize their efficiency and revenue. A hospital billing company can save your administration time by providing analytical reports and guidelines to comply with the latest healthcare regulations. Hence, medical staff at hospitals can identify key areas that are causing problems and demand new strategies to address those problems.

6. Partner with a Reliable Medical Billing Company

Medical practices must constantly deliver quality care services and comply with current trends in medicine and proper staff management. They must also stay current with the most recent rules about medical coding protocols, insurance companies and medical billing regulations. With so much depth to comply with, an already busy medical staff can slip through the cracks that can lead to rejections, denials, and underpayments that make medical practices to invest their important time and money in the administration procedures.

Along with their insider’s view or in-depth knowledge, a hospital billing company can implement billing procedures and use smart software solutions and equipment to help providers stand out. This can help you manage challenges that arise due to the costly time and labour involved in monitoring down debtors, submitting and editing claims. In this way, it’s an effective way to increase revenue and regain control over your hospital billing department.

If you are looking for the best hospital billing company that can help you achieve your success with fast and reliable collection management, then outsource hospital billing services to medical billing companies, Learn more! We provide the best medical billing services and help you run the business more efficiently!

Price Transparency Essential to Patient Empowerment

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Independent Women’s Voice (IWV) applauds the introduction of the “PRICE Transparency Act” today by Senator Mike Braun. The “PRICE Transparency Act” would require hospitals and insurers to reveal prices for care to patients beforehand, allowing consumers to make informed, price-conscious decisions for themselves and their loved ones.

While price transparency was important before the coronavirus, in the aftermath of the economic troubles caused by the pandemic, it is a crucial first step towards a competitive healthcare marketplace that empowers patients, expands access to quality care, and drives prices down.

IWV Policy Director Hadley Heath Manning issued the following statement:

“Americans would never buy other goods or services without a price upfront. Non-emergency health care, which is over 90 percent of healthcare spending, should be no different. With transparent pricing, Americans can plan ahead or shop and compare prices and reviews from a variety of healthcare providers in order to find the best value. Price transparency measures have proven to reduce prices for all patients, not just aggressive shoppers. That’s the power of competition at work!

“President Trump has taken bold steps to fight for patients to have healthcare price transparency. But we know executive actions only go so far; they could easily be undone by a future administration controlled by healthcare industry cronies. That’s why the work of lawmakers like Sen. Braun is so important. Codifying these measures will help to ensure that price transparency is the law of the land and that this sunlight won’t set with any changing of White House control.

“American patients deserve that security, and they deserve the accountability and affordability in health care that transparency will bring. ”

Independent Women’s Voice has been a leading voice championing healthcare price transparency. IWV’s nationwide advocacy campaign has driven thousands of public comments in support of price transparency to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Independent Women’s Voice fights for women and families by effectively expanding support among women, independents, and millennials for policy solutions that aren’t just well intended, but actually enhance people’s freedom, opportunities and well-being.

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Patients Win in Case Dismissal

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The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling on Tuesday in favor of patients when it dismissed an attempt by hospital groups to block price transparency regulations. The regulations, issued last November by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), require hospitals, other healthcareproviders, and insurance companies to disclose their cash and negotiated contract prices to patients in a clear, easy-to-access format.

In December 2019, a consortium of hospital groups sued HHS to stop the regulations from taking effect.

In the case, American Hospital Association v. Azar, Independent Women’s Law Center and PatientRightsAdvocates.org filed an amicus brief arguing that providers are fully capable of complying with the rules since insurers routinely disclose their prices in their explanation of benefits statements—after it’s too late for patients to choose the most cost-effective care option.

Independent Women’s Law Center Director Jennifer C. Braceras said, “We are gratified by today’s ruling and hopeful that the nearly fifty percent of American patients with high deductible plans will soon be able to comparison shop until their deductibles are met.” Independent Women’s Law Center Senior Fellow Erin Hawley said, “The Price Transparency Rule upheld by the District Court today is a win for consumers. It injects market-forces into the healthcare economy, making sure that hospital patients—like the consumers of any other product—know upfront the price of a healthcare product or service.”

As a result of today’s ruling, hospitals will soon be required to disclose prices to patients before they purchase care, so that patients can shop for treatment that fits their needs and their budgets.

“The Price Transparency Rule injects market-forces into the healthcare economy, making sure that hospital patients—like the consumers of any other product—know upfront the price of a healthcare product or service.”