Used the HFMA Resource Center yet? - Healthcare Financial Management Association

Healthcare Financial Management, Nov 15, 2002

It's just a click away! If you haven't yet visited the HFMA Resource Center, you're missing out on a key membership benefit to make your job easier. "It's invaluable," explains HEMA member Jim Unland, president of the Health Capital Group. "In fact, it's the most useful information I receive on the fast-moving regulatory environment in Washington, D.C. Nobody does it better than HFMA."

By logging on to http://www.hfma.org/resource, you can browse and download summaries of key regulations, compliance checklists, HIPAA implementation tools, and more. "The HFMA Resource Center is an excellent resource," explains Jennifer Leatherman, an accountant with Moore County Hospital District in Dumas, Texas. "The search function makes it much easier to find healthcare-related information than searching the web."

Remember, HFMA members enjoy unrestricted, free on-line access to all of the content of the Resource Center. Nonmembers may view certain resources that are available to the public, including the comprehensive content index, and may purchase individual documents through the Member Services Center.

Navigating the Resource Center

The quickest way to view a comprehensive listing of resources that HFMA has to offer on a particular topic is to use the "Search" function found at the right of every HFMA web page. You'll quickly locate relevant material from the Resource Center, HFMA publications, and education, and other areas of HFMA's web site.

To browse the Resource Center by broad content topics, click on "Focus Areas" in the menu at the right. These members-only areas are set up to help you browse the wide variety of HFMA technical resources available to you on-line.

What Information Is Available?

Information ranges from accounting guidance to reimbursement issues to regulatory compliance for all healthcare settings, including group practices, integrated delivery systems, managed care providers, long-term care providers, and home health agencies.

Some key features in the Resource Center follow below, You can find these topics from the main menu at http://www.hfma.org/resource.

Focus Areas

HFMA's Focus Areas include Medicare Payment, the Business of Health Care, Patient Financial Services, Commercial Payment, HIPAA, and Leadership and Professional Development. Each of these six major focus areas contains articles, tools, authoritative sources, relevant statistics, and key compliance issues.

Here are the types of topics you'll find within each Focus Area:

Medicare Payment

Hospitals

Long-term Care Settings

Ambulatory Care Settings

Medicare+Choice

Business of Healthcare

Accounting/Financial Reporting

Taxes and Tax-Exempt Status Resource Management

Patient Financial Services

Patient Access

Billing and Collection

Revenue Cycle

Commercial Payment (including Managed Care)

Contracting

Uninsured

Prompt Payment

HIPAA

Transaction Standards

Security

Privacy

Leadership and Professional Development

Workforce issues

Compensation

New in the Federal Register

The Federal Register is the official daily publication for Federal proposed and final rules and other notices. HFMA staff comb through the Federal Register daily to compile and post relevant notices affecting Medicare, HIPAA, Medicaid, TRICARE, and other Federal healthcare programs--along with links to take you directly to each notice.

Principles and Practices Board Library

HFMA's Principles and Practices (P&P) Board, a panel of volunteer experts, reevaluates, clarifies, and establishes accounting principles and financial reporting practices for health service organizations. P&P Board Statements provide valuable guidance to address the unique characteristics of healthcare organizations that are not addressed by the FASB, the GASB, and the AICPA.

Compliance Checklist Series

Developed jointly by HFMA's P&P Board and the Association's Compliance Officers Forum, these documents contain a comprehensive checklist, cross-referenced with the full text of the HSS Office of Inspector General's guidance, plus extensive background materials.

Glossary

The healthcare finance field is rife with jargon. Use this handy searchable database to look up healthcare financial management terms and healthcare finance acronyms. These terms are reviewed for accuracy and currency by HFMA's Board of Examiners.

Positions and Activities

Learn how the Association is working to help members excel in their jobs and careers by developing and promoting ethical, high-quality healthcare finance practices. This is the place to go to learn more about the Patient Friendly Billing project, the Coalition to Protect America's Health Care, volunteer task forces, HFMA's comment letters, and more.

Government Resources

In addition to specific hot-links included in all of HFMA's technical documents, The Resource Center offers an Internet Guide to Finding Federal Resources. A wealth of Federal resources affecting healthcare organizations is available for free on the Internet. This guide can provide fast and inexpensive access to important information if you know how to tap into these resources. It has been prepared to help you quickly find the Federal information you need.