Ethics in Management of Health Information - Essay Example

"Ethics in Management of Health Information" is a perfect example of a paper on medical ethics. As a health information manager, Shirley should ensure the accuracy and authenticity of the information required. In this case, the billing information is not accurate and genuine. Thus obliging Shirley to take corrective measures. In this situation, she has an important role in protecting the insurance company from impending fraud. To do so, she has to liars with the physician and Ann to ensure that the correct number of claims are submitted to the insurance companies. In case the process to stop fraud in this situation fails, Shirley has no option but to report the matter to both the insurance companies involved and the police.

Shirley should recommend the office of the inspector general to conduct periodical supervision to check on the progress of the billing department in compliance with the law. By so doing, the office will ensure that the review its requirements for patients who need to have a 50 minute face-to-face interview with the psychiatrist. Further, her recommendation should include that ensuring that the records are accessible to the health information officer to facilitate accountability and confidentiality. This will leave the health information officer with the obligation of providing that the records are accurate with minimal tampering from the members of staff with ill motives in the process (Harman, 2001).

First, the threat of investigation could have been prevented if there were proper coding in the clinic. The clinic should adopt a number of coding criteria apart from the standard coding as stipulated by the policy. Shirley should have discussed with the psychiatrist pointing out the issues that she had noted so that they could come up with a refined policy that could prevent fraud.

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