Government relations at CHA is the art of representing interests through informing, acquainting, educating, and persuading those who govern. It involves communication and interpretation of the laws and regulations of government for those whose interests are affected. The CHA DATABANK is a web-based database ( http://www.databank.org/ ) of hospital utilization and financial performance indicators. The database is the source of comparable information on average length of stay, outpatient statistics, charges and expenses per day and per stay, uncollected charges, number of days in accounts receivable gross, profitability and a number of personnel statistics. The Discharge Data database contains all Inpatient and Ambulatory Surgery data of member hospitals. The database is used to facilitate: patient origin studies, market share analyses, charge comparisons, length of stay studies, disease-specific volume reports, patient access to care studies, severity-adjusted mortality comparisons and a variety of public health analyses. This administrative database is the source for Colorado Hospital Quality data on the website http://www.hospitalquality.org/. The system also saves hospitals the cost of reporting to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment registries. CHA Education Department provides educational programming focusing on hospital operations and performance and continually works to meet its members' ongoing and emerging learning needs. It is the Department's goal to provide the membership with quality, timely and cost effective programming around the state and at the CHA Conference Center, which is also available for member use. The purpose of public relations at CHA is to inform three groups about important topics and issues facing hospitals and their patients: the media, the public and member hospitals and health systems. Information is provided through news releases, various publications, web sites and the members’ CHA Friday Newsletter. CHA was part of the collaborative effort dating back to 1948 to establish guidelines governing how health care providers and the media work together to release information about health care stories of interest, while protecting the rights of patients and hospitals. The public relations staff of CHA also works informally to resolve consumer / patient complaints it receives. CHA staff serve as expert resources on third party payer requirements in the areas of hospital billing, reimbursement and finance. They monitor, interpret and research current developments of third party payer rules and regulations. Staff respond to member inquiries in the areas of managed care and financial management including reimbursement, capital financing, prospective payment and capitation, hospital accounting, record retention, financial audits, job positions and placement and utilization review.
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