Maureen Bonatch

Maybe you’ve been preparing for years for a leadership position through education and promotions, or perhaps the opportunity was thrust upon you. Regardless of the path you took to get here, you’re now in a nursing leadership position. Even if this position is within the organization you’ve worked within for years, your priorities have changed. In addition to being responsible to your patients, you’re now responsible for your employees, as well.
Even if you know all the employees, and have wo...

Value-based healthcare has influenced a culture of continuous improvement in the provision of patient care with an overarching goal of improving outcomes without additional, or unnecessary, costs. This goal coincides with most consumers when choosing a health plan.
Most health plans measure their quality and performance with the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS), one of the most widely used healthcare performance measurement tools. HEDIS provides consumers with a set o...

The New Year’s Eve ball drop starting the year may already feel like a distant memory, and many of us have already dropped the ball on our New Year’s resolutions. This occurs so frequently that January 17th has been dubbed as, Ditch Your New Year’s Resolution Day.
There’s no reason to be hard on yourself if your resolution didn’t stick. Just because January 1st feels like a clean slate, you don’t have to wait another year to begin to make positive changes. We tend to wait for a new month, a n...

Nurses work at the frontline of patient care. We collaborate and work with other healthcare professionals, but usually provide the most direct patient care. This extra time spent serving as an advocate, resource, and educator, while helping patients facilitate their healthcare journey has prompted the nursing profession to sometimes be thought of as the heart of healthcare. It’s also contributed to nurses earning the honor of being voted the most trusted profession for the 16th consecutive ye...

Prospective Payment Systems (PPS) were established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). PPS refers to a fixed healthcare payment system. This is based on the operating and capital-related costs of a medical diagnosis and determines reimbursement for care provided to Medicare and Medicaid participants. The enables healthcare providers to be aware of the predetermined reimbursement amount for patient care regardless of the amount of care provided.
PPS is intended to motivate...

Many nurses countdown the years until retirement, but when the time comes they discover that they aren't quite ready, or they don’t have the funds to live the life they desire. The ongoing nursing shortage has yielded a demand for experienced nurses. Rather than retire, some nurses are exploring other nursing options, or reducing their schedules to assist in adjusting to retirement. While employers may consider the benefits of recruiting, or maintaining, these nurses for their workforce.
Many...

There’s one person we talk to more than anyone else—ourselves. Our internal dialogue is constant most of our waking hours. Although unfortunately, the way we talk to ourselves is often irrational or untrue. Our self-talk when we make a mistake, or overthink a situation, is often demeaning and negative. We’d never say the things we think to ourselves to another person because they’re hurtful. Yet we often poison our happiness by speaking to ourselves in a negative or self-destructive manner.
A...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 prompted an ongoing effort to reduce healthcare costs while striving to improve quality patient care. A push toward paying for value with a focus on clinical outcomes, incentives, and mandatory reporting, has led to increased cost control efforts. The intent is to improve the quality and overall population health while reducing waste by changing how payment is received, and how healthcare is delivered.
Capitated care shifts the role of managing the amount...

Bonatch, Maureen, MSN, RN

When I met Dorothy, she was always counting. Her chapped lips moved nonstop as she chanted random numbers. She'd increase the speed, as if that would help her to reach the end quickly—but since the numbers didn't appear to be in any sensible order, this loomed before her like an impossible task. Her nonsensible counting seemed to be her manner of trying to keep pace with the nonsensible thoughts racing through her mind, and her eyes bore the agony of the marathon.

Acute Psychiatric Needs in The Emergency Department
Overview
Patients presenting with acute psychiatric needs to the emergency department (ED) have increased to nearly double the rate of a decade ago. This can create different challenges for nurses working in the ED. Without the development of an increased awareness to recognize the unique needs of a patient in an acute psychiatric crisis, it could result in patient’s being undiagnosed, increased safety risks for patients and staff and could ...

Long before the holidays arrive, we begin to mentally review what needs to be done to create the perfect holiday, or choose the perfect gift for our loved ones. Many of us develop unrealistic expectations on our time, money, and energy, of what the holidays should include. This is especially difficult for nurses since often the holidays bring longer hours, less staff, and more stress. Instead of enjoying the holiday season, we end up feeling guilty, frustrated and overwhelmed.
Months before t...

Population health management (PHM) refers to a concentrated holistic approach to improving the patient health outcomes of a group of individuals. These individuals are part of a larger group that could consist of people within a predetermined health system, a geographic area, those with a specific disease or ones sharing another defined characteristic. The move away from patient fee-for-service to a value-based model has made managing population health the focus for most Accountable Care Orga...

Anyone can develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including families of victims and nurses themselves. It can be difficult to recognize PTSD since symptoms may not manifest until long after an event occurs, and because many people don’t seek treatment. Most nurses are aware of the risk of PTSD for their patients, but many haven’t considered that they may be at risk
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is usually associated with active and retired military members, and although they m...

Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) refers to the process of identifying, collecting and managing the practice’s revenue from payers based on the services provided. A successful RCM process is essential for a healthcare practice to maintain financial viability and continue to provide quality care for their patients.
The move toward value-based reimbursement and more holistic patient care has required healthcare providers to take a closer look at the way they approach revenue cycle management. Poor...

Sometimes it may seem like we’re constantly reaching for the next step in our career ladder, but what happens when we reach the top? Or when the destination we’ve been striving for no longer looks enticing? Taking the time to slow down and assess if we’re going in the right direction, or to determine why our career seems to have stalled, might help us determine if we’re stuck in a career rut and how to get out of it.
After years of nursing school, and then choosing what seemed like the perfec...