Florida Gulf Coast University Health Coding & Management Questions

Jackie and Sandra began a long-term-care consulting firm 5 years ago in a retirement region. They now have six employees: 2 RHIAs and 4 RHITs. They have consulting contracts with 35 long-term-care facilities and have developed a reputation for excellence.

During a meeting with the employees, Jackie and Sandra commended them for the effort each had contributed to the success of the firm. In planning for the future, Jackie and Sandra then asked the employees to share with them Ideas on expanding the business by revising the vision. One option they had discussed was that of expanding their geographic region into another state. This would mean actively marketing to long-term-care facilities beyond their present region and hiring additional staff.

Bryan said he had been listening to employee conversations at a nearby hospital and learned that there was a need for additional home health care are personnel and resources in the region. Hospital utilization management staff expressed concern with the difficulty of referring patients promptly to home health care firms. Bryan thought developing and managing home health care as a separate cost center would fill this market niche and offer challenges for the firm.

Ann shared an experience she had at one of the nursing homes. Two physicians were telling her how difficult it was to hire knowledgeable office staff and retain them. Ann suggested expanding their business into physician offices. She felt they had the expertise to manage practice offices and train competent staff. Ann further stated that when she mentioned this need to a physical therapist who recently joined a group of fellow therapists in opening an office, her friend responded that such a service would be welcome. Then he related the difficulty they were having finding competent office managers.

Jackie, Sandra, and their staff have three options to consider as they undertake strategic planning

QUESTIONS:

1.Explain the steps to conduct a SWOT analysis to evaluate expansion of their geographic region into another state to serve additional long-term-care facilities.

2Explain how any expansion of services could impact the organization’s mission statements, values statements, and vision.

3Outline the components that should be included in a detailed business plan for an expansion of services.

The last Joint Commission report for Community Hospital was unfavorable with regard to employee ongoing education. Top executives admitted they set other priorities and the managers concurred. Overall the report was very good and the managers were pleased, but determined to focus on education during the coming year.

With this mandate, upper-level management developed one corporate objective relating to education as the budget process for the coming year began. This corporate objective read:

Corporate objective III: To educate health care professionals within the enterprise to meet the health care needs of society and to define 5-year plans to meet educational needs for several professional groups.

The corporate objectives were distributed and discussed at a meeting with middle managers. The responsibility for developing departmental objectives for the coming year was delegated to the managers. Community Hospital culture was participative in nature and the flowchart in Figure 5-1 in your text describes the communication process as the managers shared the vision with the teams and the team leaders empowered individual employees to offer suggestions.

QUESTIONS:

1.Develop a list of potential ongoing educational objectives for health information services to meet corporate objective III for the coming year.

2.Provide an example of where automation could lend valuable assistance in solving this managerial problem.

3.Explain how suggestions provided by employees, as outlined in the flowchart in Figure 5-1, could impact meeting this corporate objective.