Energy Expenditure in the Whole Body, Coursework Example

In order for a larger percentage of health care organizations to participate in the switch from paper records to electronic records, the government should provide them with financial and informational resources. Many institutions resist this change because electronic health record systems are expensive. Therefore, it isn’t feasible for small organizations to implement them in some situations. In other cases, funding is needed to hire a staff to convert the records from paper to electronic storage. Last, many organizations do not know how to make this transition. Therefore, they need to be provided with information to help them through this process.

When implemented correctly, it does appear that HIPPAA helps the patient. Even though it is not completely effective, it does require many health care organizations to demonstrate that they are taking steps to protect the privacy of patients. Often, this legislation is not successful if the employees of the organization have not received comprehensive training pertaining to the ethics of the act. Therefore, it is valuable for health care institutions to offer this training. As a patient, I was annoyed by HIPAA. This policy requires signing a lot of paperwork at the doctor’s office to ensure the doctor’s protection. In addition, the patient doesn’t have a change to see how it benefits him or her. Since they are not very aware of this policy, many of them do not think it impacts them significantly.

The most important role that health information managers and professionals have in terms of their record keeping responsibilities are to ensure that they are recording information accurately and in a time effective manner. Accuracy, however, is the more important component because incorrect records can result in a reduced quality of patient care. However, the timing aspect is most difficult to implement because health information managers wear many different hats and have many responsibilities at once. Therefore, it may be challenging to immediately upload new data to the system. This could be addressed by requiring the health professionals do to so directly after seeing the patient.

If I was asked to code something that is in direct violation of the code, it would become necessary for me to report this request to my immediate supervisor. If this is the individual issuing the request or if the supervisor agrees with this ethical breach, I would report this problem directly to AHIMA as a whistleblower (AHIMA House of Delegates, 2009). It is important to act according to ethical standards and when posed with a request that would breach these ideals, it is important to not comply and uphold the standards of practice.

If I were employed as an account professional in a health care organization, I believe that submitting Medicaid and Medicare for reimbursement would be the most challenging. Since these organizations are directly tied into the government practices and participate with subsidiary companies for coverage, it is occasionally challenging to determine whether the program itself should be billed or if billing the supplemental insurance is necessary. Furthermore, a lot of health care institutions are selective about which insurance companies they accept.

An allied health profession that I do not know much about is exercise physiology. A major challenge of this profession is that exercise and physical activity is used to cure a variety of ailments, which requires comprehensive knowledge of anatomy and physiology because some exercises can aggravate ailments. A majority of these professionals have their own offices, but also collaborate with other therapists to ensure that their patients are able to achieve health from a wide range of specialty practices (Elia, 1992).

A Norton Infusion Center is located in my area. To prepare for a disaster, it would be essential for this organization to have their data backed up on another password-protected system. In addition, by regularly backing up patient data onto a system that is not connected to the internet, the health care professionals could reasonably retrieve this information even if there are security breach concerns in place. Disasters could be intentional or unintentional, physical or data-related. Therefore, emergency supplies should be on hand and information systems should be prepared to be moved (Wolter et al., 2012). The most plausible disasters are fire damage, flooding, and storm damage. These aspects should be considered during the formation of the disaster plan.

In my state, I am required to first receive certification on a national level from either the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) or American Academy of Professional Coders (Medical Billing and Coding, 2015). There does not appear to be any stringent requirements for local regulation. However, medical records must be kept in a manner that contains sufficient information to identify the patient. Standard records are not filled. Records must be completed within 5 years. Furthermore, records must be kept on file for this same period of time. It appears that these requirements are too liberal because while they ensure protection in some manners, it does not seem that all of the variables have been considered during the drafting of these rules.

References

AHIMA House of Delegates. (2008). AHIMA Standards of Ethical Coding. Retrieved from http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ahima/bok2_001166.hcsp?dDocName=bok2_001166

Elia, M. (1992). Energy expenditure in the whole body, Energy metabolism, Tissue determinants and cellular corollaries. New York: Raven Press.

Medical Billing and Coding. (2015). What are the medical coding certification requirements? Retrieved from http://www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/qnas/what-are-the-medical-coding-certification-requirements/

Wolter, Julie; Dolan, Marsha; Dooling, Julie. (2012). Consumer Preparedness in the Face of Disaster. Journal of AHIMA, 83(9): 38-42.