inspection

Life was much easier lately in the hospital - in patient was less....

The local National Health Insurance Agency (NHIA) office had started their hospital inspection rounds. They go from one hospital to another and checking about in patient detail. Some hospitals were caught red handed doing illegal claims and their contract with the agency was terminated (that means they could not get payment from the agency for any admission).

  Well, there are lots of way of doing "claims":

1.Warded patient slept in the house at night
- the patient go home to sleep in their own bed (or elsewhere...)
the policy of the NHIA  : a patient is allowed leave for 4 hrs everyday and should sleep in the hospital during night.
Patient who left the hospital and sleep elsewhere is considered stable and does not required in-patient treatment.

2.Prolonged stay
- patient stayed for a longer period than expected...
there are always some patients who got admitted and stayed for a long time just for insurance purposes...and some requested a longer stay for other purposes - such as law suit...

3.Incomplete medical records
- daily progress note is required to show that the attending doctor is doing rounds. It is ok from Mon to Sat ... but Sundays ? lots of hospitals do not do any routine rounds but they still claim in patient consultation fee from the NHIA.

Our hospital had discharged lots of patient lately and  rumors said the inspection team is currently near our area....