Problems with the Pre-Admission Call Center
Problems with the Pre-Admission Call Center
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Who should Dr. Kutup and Mrs. Mintz approach next with this problem? Provide a rationale for your choice(s).
Having reported the issue to the SSH call office and the pre-admission offices without any success, the two doctors should now seek for alternative. The two should move ahead and inquire with the SSH administrator and the management. This is because all the communications that are made from the call centre are made on behalf of the Great West hospital bodies. Therefore, being the decision making body (persons), they should be well informed of every single activity and operations that are on-going in within the hospital system. Besides, the junior staffs, including the staff working at the call center are implanting policies that are made by the hospital administration body and they only act on directives given to them by the management team.
Is Mr. Count de Money responding in an emotionally intelligent way to Mrs. Mintz and her concerns? What aspects of emotional contagion do you think apply in this case?
When asked about the claiming of admission fees, Mr. Count de Money gets emotional and fails to reason with Mrs. Mintz, instead he hangs up the call before any constructive discussion is reached. He even goes ahead to post another question to Mrs. Mintz whether it was justified for the system to lose money on admission. According to de Money, theirs is to follow the script and nothing else. Mr. de Money showed an implicit emotional contagion that was expressed by their conversation with Mrs. Mintz. The emotional contagion expressed by Mr. de Money could be observed from his conversation including hanging up the calls from Mrs. Mintz. This could be attributed to social and task interdependence within the SSH and the Great West groups.
What type of team should SSH form to address this problem? Who should be selected to be in the team? Provide a rationale for your choices.
To address this problem, the SSH should form an investigative committee. The committee formed by the SSH should be charge with the responsibility of resolving the issue and restoring normalcy in the financial operations of the hospital. The committee should be composed of the both physicians and non-physicians. The physician included in the committee should be those that have fallen victims of this exploitation and those that have information on this admission charges. The hospital administration and management should be included in the inquiry committee because they are the body that is responsible for the formulation and implementation of financial policies of the SSH.
4- Identify and delineate the top three issues that the team should address in its deliberations.
The inquiry committee should address the following issues:
The admission charges claims; to investigate whether the claims are true and establish the root cause of these charges
The conduct of the call center administrators; whether Mr. de Money acted within his powers
The long and short-term implication of the charges on the institution i.e. the claim by the physicians that they are not satisfied and would prefer serving somewhere else.
5- Since SSH is part of the larger hospital system, who should be the person designated to take the matter to corporate headquarters?
The matter should be forwarded to the corporate headquarters by the CEO of the SSH. This is because, it is the SSH senior most personality in the administrative line and he is one who is directly answerable to the corporate board. 6- How should the team evaluate whether a change in corporate policy is needed? Who should take the lead on evaluation?
The evaluation for the need of change in the corporate policy is based on the level of success of the organization. With the fear of losing more customers following these admission charges that are made out of pocket, there is possibility that the hospital’s profitability index is likely to decline, therefore a need for performance evaluation (Hammaker, & Tomlinson, 2011). The evaluation process should be spearheaded by the hospital management and administration team given that it is the management that is directly responsible for the performance of the institution.
7. What new policies and procedures do you recommend be implemented to better manage insurance verification, customer relations, and cash collections? How can these policies and procedures improve customer service and patient satisfaction among the families in the community served by South Street Hospital?
To better manage hospitals, it would be recommended that the government takes the medical financing through the Medicare insurance policies. This will ensure that medical cover is provided to all citizens irrespective of their ability to pay. Such scheme would also reduce the medical burden on the tax payers. Secondly, the medical payments should be directly made to the bank accounts of the health institutions to reduce the instances of personal (out-of-pocket) payments (Hammaker, & Tomlinson, 2011). This would create transparency in the management of hospital funds. The implantation of these policies would lead to improvement of the quality of care provided to the customers and also make healthcare more affordable to the consumers, hence, increase access to quality healthcare services.
Reference
Hammaker, D. K., & Tomlinson, S. J. (2011). Health care management and the law: Principles and applications. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar/Cengage Learning.
