Member rights is a logical starting point for the bylaws. The most fundamental rights accorded members of the medical staff relate to the due process they are provided if the medical executive committee (MEC) recommends that corrective action. Corrective action is defined as the termination of...
The bedrock of the medical staff due process manual is a federal statute named the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA). As with many laws and statutes, a specific case triggered HCQIA. The story is worth repeating as it highlights what constitutes good-faith and bad-faith peer...
Healthcare providers are taking on increased risk under accountable care models like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Pathways to Success plan to overhaul the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). To ensure the success of value-based initiatives, leadership teams have...
Medical staff officers have the responsibility to govern and oversee the administrative functions of the medical staff. In the past, the office of medical staff president or chief of staff was an honorary position that required little work—truth be told, most of that work was actually done by...
The hospital governing board’s oversight responsibilities are critical to the success of the organization. Governing boards need information that can enable them to optimally perform their duties. The roles and responsibilities of the governing board include everything from ensuring cost-...
Working together to solve a problem is much better and less frustrating than going it alone, or worse, working at odds with someone else approaching the same challenge. The takeaway message from this series to date is to figure out how medical staff leaders and MSPs can jointly use their unique...
Last time, we discussed the roles and responsibilities of the hospital board, the medical staff, and the hospital administration to ensure the quality of care in the organization. For clarity, this was presented as a typical hierarchical structure with distinct reporting relationships and chains...
One of the key challenges in any evaluation of human performance is the issue of bias, and peer review is no different. If a critical goal of peer review is fairness, then we must avoid any actions—intended or unintended—that would bias the results.
As a medical staff leader, you most likely had to deal with situations that required new nonclinical skills. This may have included conflict management, leading change/performance improvement initiatives, or learning more about your personality style and finding more effective ways to...
One of MSPs’ most important duties is educating others regarding the processes and the status of the work that lies before the medical staff office (MSO). This includes communication throughout the organization and involves MSO staff, physician leadership, and senior management. Without...
