4 Best Practices to Make Your Staffing Budget Foolproof
The almost daily pressure to maintain or even lower staffing levels while also ensuring that patients are receiving safe, value based respiratory care is commonplace for today’s respiratory care manager. Here are 4 best practices that will help determine the…
Mortal Combat: Defining the Win in the Battle Against COPD
My most recent post plugged the release of the National COPD Action Plan at the ATS 2017 International Conference held in Washington DC. Also coming out of the ATS conference is the presentation of new research finding that for COPD…
Battling COPD: The First-Ever National Blueprint to Fight Chronic Lung Disease
The May 25 AARC News Now newsletter spotlights the final version of the National COPD Action Plan released during the ATS conference in Washington DC. The nationwide plan, a collaborative effort of the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (NHLBI) and…
Tomorrow’s Asthma Forecast: How Meteorologists are Attempting to Predict Thunder Asthma
“Tomorrow’s Forecast: Thunderstorms with a chance of asthma.” This could be an actual weather report coming to a future newscast near you. Following close on the heels of my recent post “Thunderstruck!” I happened on a report at rtmagazine.com highlighting new research…
Thunderstruck!
Spring has sprung bringing the potential for strong storms and rain showers. It is expedient we understand weather related asthma triggers and providing strategies for ourselves and our patients.
Refined GOLD
The Global Strategy for the Diagnosis, Management, and Prevention of COPD (GOLD) has released its 2017 report. The executive summary highlights the “most significant” changes: The assessment of COPD has been refined to separate the spirometric assessment from …
Hot Off the Press!
The AARC has updated its “Coding Guidelines for Certain Respiratory Care Services” to reflect recent changes through January 2017! Based on the Medicare program’s coding and coverage policies, the AARC offers the document to assist members with “coding guidance for those…
Ham and Wheeze
Workload distribution Made Easy! Wouldn’t it be great to predict your staffing based on the actual workload orders? Learn more “The perfect ham and cheese sandwich is all about focusing on quality ingredients and about simple techniques. You start with…
Let’s Be Clear
Sometimes “clear” is only as clear as mud. This can be especially true when the correct answer is given to the wrong question. The recent clarification made by the National Correct Coding Initiative regarding what constitutes an “episode of care” may only…
Readmissions: Stacking the Deck
Gentrify: To change (a place, such as an old neighborhood) by improving it and making it more appealing to people who have money. A FierceHealthcare article (“CMS penalties may stack deck against minority-serving hospitals”), along with data showing that 72 hospitals, primarily…