News and Events

2007 National Healthcare Access Personnel Week at UAMS

The National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) has celebrated National Healthcare Access Week since 1982, recognizing the efforts of and promoting excellence of those in the patient access field. “Access Week” is held every year during the first week of April 5^th. The theme this year was “Patient Access: First Impressions are Our First Priority!”

UAMS has been celebrating access week since 2001, each year expanding and improving the events. We celebrated all week long this year from Monday April 1^st through Friday April 7^th, 2007. The excitement began Monday with the RIST Scavenger Hunt puzzles. Access personnel used the monthly Registration Alert Newsletters online to find the answers to the clues. Once complete, the puzzles were used as entries for prize drawings on Friday. There were a total of 38 prize winners. Prizes included everything from pens and lunch bags to travel mugs and gift cards!

Tuesday was the annual STAR (Striving Together Achieving Results) luncheon. This invitation only occasion recognizes all of the monthly STAR award recipients for their efforts. In addition a STAR of the Year is named. This year the winner was Anita Carlton from MIRT.  Guest Speakers included Holly Hiryak, Director of Patient Access Services, Dan Riley, CFO and Philip Baroni, Associate Administrator of Outpatient Services.Guests were served chicken with white wine and tarragon sauce along with wild rice, vegetables and Italian crème cake for dessert, all compliments of the UAMS catering division. STAR recipients were awarded personalized leather portfolios a token of appreciation for their success.

On Wednesday and Thursday, individual departments celebrated internally. Managers awarded canvas bag gifts, provided by Hospital Administration, to their access personnel. In addition, department celebrations were held. This year brought lots of new and creative ideas from donuts for breakfast to themed parties! Fun!

Access Week came to a close in high style with a fair in the Stephens building. It included vendor booths staffed by internal departments, third party payors and vendors. The highlight of the fair however, was the Karaoke sponsored by TRACE. Soft drinks and snacks were served and a great time was had by all. 

Happy Access Week to all of those who make such great first Impressions at UAMS!

Attention ARKHAM Members and Access Leaders!

We have been presented with a great opportunity to join the HFMA Tri-State group (consisting of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee) chapter meeting for some amazing educational and informative sessions February 1-3, 2006. You can participate Thursday only for $125 or all 3 days at $250.  The ARKHAM meeting will be held on day 2 at 4:00PM.  Quint Studor, a well known speaker on customer service will open the Thursday session and Terry Rappuhn, CPA, Project Leader, PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING^® Project, will be speaking Thursday afternoon on dealing with the uninsured/underinsured. 

The meeting will be held at the GoldStrike casino in Tunica with a room rate of $50/night.  When booking reservations you must tell them you are with the HFMA meeting.  There will be over 30 vendors and many other professionals that you will have an opportunity to meet and learn from. 

VoiCert Training
VoiCert on-line webinars and phone based trainings are excellent methods to get new users up and running quickly as well as refresh existing users on features of the system. Our on-line webinars provide live, interactive trainings from the participant’s PC with a live instructor via a web conference. Phone-based training provides the participant with a live, interactive audio conference. These training tools are conducted by experienced VoiCert instructors and offer personalized instruction without ever having to leave your desk. For more information, please email us at VoiCertTraining@twsg.com . Please review the following training schedule:

Phone-based Training Schedule (Time zone: Eastern)

VoiCert Automated Call (AC) & VoiCert Monitored Call (MC) (1 hour course):
9/21 – 3:00
10/04 – 10:00
10/06 – 3:00

VoiCert Automated Call (30 minute course):
9/29 – 10:00
10/20 – 3:00

VoiCert Monitored Call (30 minute course):
9/29 – 3:00
10/19 – 10:00

On-line Webinar Training Schedule (1 hour course):

VoiCert Tracker 3.4 (1 hour)
9/23 – 3:00
10/13 – 2:00
10/28 – 10:00

To register for any of these training sessions, contact us at 1.800.864.2378, ext. 557 or email us at VoiCertTraining@twsg.com.

VoiCert Online Tutorials
VoiCert online tutorials are an excellent way to train new users as well as refresh existing users on the VoiCert system. Online tutorials are available 24 hours a day / 7 days a week on our client’s only website. These tutorials are pre-recorded. You have the ability to navigate through the step by step training at your own pace. In order to access the VoiCert tutorials, simply visit our website at www.voicert.com, click on the log in directory button at the top right hand portion of the screen. Type in your account number in the Username field. Type your PIN in the password field, and click the login button. Scroll down to On-line tutorials and training offerings and click on the More info… link. You will then be able to access the on line tutorials by subject matter. We hope you find these tutorials to be a valuable training tool!

31st Annual NAHAM Conference and Exhibition
May 14-17, 2005
The 2005 NAHAM (National Association of Healthcare Access Managers) conference, held in Tampa, Florida was a huge success.  Attendance was the highest recorded ever!  NAHAM has been around for 31 years and offers a massive amount of information, education and support for access personnel.  This year’s theme Creative Solutions for Your World offered a variety of tracks for the novice and the expert. The collaboration and networking experience was awesome providing an energy that seems unstoppable. 

UAMS participants included Holly Jones, Salonica Gray and Holly Hiryak.  Peggy Branscum, our past-president represented White River Medical Center.  We were all very busy during the conference as we all had active roles including moderating duties, a poster presentation, a workshop presentation and committee meetings.  Attending a conference like this can be motivating and energizing but participating is even more exhilarating!  Meeting others that face the same challenges on a daily basis builds such a connection and camaraderie that you just cannot imagine not having those contacts. 

The keynote speaker, Michael Fortino, is a dynamic individual that captivated the audience and inspired us to craft a culture of creativity and innovation through transformational leadership.  His positive approach to high-performance teamwork, coaching, mentoring, praise and creativity provides a sound framework for thrusting your access team to the next level of professionalism.  

Holly Jones received a lot of praise and recognition for her poster presentation.  It is a great display of the successes UAMS has achieved through the diligence of education and training provided by Holly and her team.  The team consists of everyone from MCPG, PBS, managers and supervisors in various areas and the RIST to access staff.  It takes a lot of effort to maintain momentum and dedication of achieving the next level and Holly Jones has done a phenomenal job.  Of course, she has the support and creativity of the RIST to keep her moving forward.  Watch for the poster at future in-services and events!

Salonica Gray and I (Holly Hiryak) presented information on establishing a career ladder in access. We have worked first hand at developing and implementing a career ladder in the admissions area and felt it would be a worthwhile topic to share with others as it can be a daunting task.  Included in the discussion were topics such as challenges, barriers, reasons for offering a career ladder, labor laws and workforce issues.  The session was well attended with many great questions from the audience.

All 3 of the UAMS participants assisted with the moderating duties at the University Session.  The session is one of the most well attended and most popular every year.  It is based on what we refer to as “hot topics” or current issues that we are faced with on a daily basis.  We begin the session with a short presentation to generate discussion from the participants and move through the various topics after thoroughly covering all aspects.  It is fairly informal and most all participants end up speaking out on some topic.  A lot of information sharing occurs in this session and relationships for future networking are cultivated in this environment. Peggy attended the Children’s Hospital session which is only in its second year but becoming very popular.  Peggy indicated the session was a wealth of information that was both relevant and timely. 

We all agree this was a great conference and came back to work ready to use the knowledge gained to continue to improve and expand the professional role of the access personnel. 

Holly Hiryak Receives Marian Blankenship Distinguished Service Award
The 31st Annual National Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) Conference and Exposition was held May 14-17 at Saddlebrook Resort in beautiful Tampa, FL.  One of the highlights of the conference is the Awards Luncheon, and this year Holly Hiryak, Director of Hospital Admissions/Access Services received the Marian Blankenship Distinguished Service Award which is awarded to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of patient healthcare access.

A few examples of her accomplishments at UAMS include the implementation of the Revenue Integrity Specialist Team as well as the Pre-Registration/Pre-Certification Team. She implemented a career ladder for Hospital Admissions access personnel, which serves as a model for hospitals around the nation. Along with all of these accomplishments, she also successfully directs the hospital's Medicaid office which processes an average of 400 new Medicaid applications monthly and produces an average monthly reimbursement of $2.3 million.

Holly is currently president of Arkansas Healthcare Access Management (ARKHAM), she serves on the NAHAM Conference Program Committee, and has served on the NAHAM Education committee. Her contributions to access management are seemingly endless. Dan Riley, Chief Financial Officer states "I have not worked with a more capable and competent professional in the field of access than Holly." She represents UAMS well, and paves the way for new innovations in patient access.

ARKHAM Meeting To Be Held at Arlington Hotel
The summer meeting of Arkansas Healthcare Access Management will be held July 21, 2005 in Hot Springs, AR at the Arlington Hotel and Spa and will be featuring guest speaker Bobette Gustafson. She is the founder and president of Gustafson and Associates, Inc. a firm dedicated to quality healthcare business process consulting and education. In her program titled Assuming Your Role as Tomorrow's Revenue Cycle Leader she speaks about setting the pace and assuming primary control of your organization’s revenue cycle destiny.

If you are interested in attending, please visit www.ark-ham.org for details.