Membership

New Resource Helps Medical Group Members Stay Regulatory Compliant

The Ambulatory Surgery Center Association is working to help its members stay in compliance with regulations with its latest resource addition.

Not only is the Ambulatory Surgery Center Association keeping members abreast of new regulations, it’s also making sure they can meet the compliance requirements.

“Part of our mission is to support our members when it comes to regulatory matters and to help them comply and to help reduce some of the regulatory burdens they could face,” ASCA Chief Financial Officer John Greenwich said.

Through a new relationship with solutions provider Akorbi, ASCA will be offering members discounted access to the company’s phone, onsite, and video interpretation services and its translation and localization services, which are available in 170 languages.

Such services would help ambulatory surgery centers stay in compliance with a mandate from the Affordable Care Act and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that requires healthcare providers funded by the Department of Health and Human Services to provide communication options for hearing- or vision-impaired patients and patients who don’t speak English. The language options must cover the 15 most common languages in each state.

“Since most of our members own and operate Medicare certified facilities, it is important that ASCA offer services to our members that help them comply with Medicare standards,” Greenwich said.

The partnership with Akorbi is an addition to ASCA’s Affinity Partner Program, through which the association creates partnerships “to find products and services from qualified vendors that would help our members be in or stay in compliance,” he said. The program, which went online in the last year, helps members with regulatory compliance through the partnerships and education requirements through training modules. It also reduces costs by providing discounted services and products.

Partner vendors are chosen based on specific guidelines and with the help of a governance-related taskforce. Other partnerships through the Affinity Partner Program provide members with portals where they can buy and sell healthcare supplies and equipment and courses for training staff, and in the future, with patient-satisfaction survey services.

ASCA members interested in the new language services can fill out a form on the association’s website, which will then be sent to Akorbi. The company will later follow up with the member about registering for the services.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Alex Beall

By Alex Beall

Alex Beall is an associate editor for Associations Now with a masters in journalism and a penchant for Instagram. MORE

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