About the Webinar

EMTALA is a hot topic and should now be on the radar screen for every hospital. There have been a recent increased number of deficiencies and increased CMS and OIG activity. Would you know what to do if a CMS surveyor walked into your hospital today to investigate an EMTALA complaint? EMTALA penalties have more than doubled, plus a cost of living, so it is almost $105,000 per violation for hospitals over 100 beds. A recent article found that 30% of US hospitals and 34% of Critical Access Hospitals have violated EMTALA in the last decade. Violations were most likely to occur in the southeast region and with hospitals with fewer than 100 beds. CMS has also made a change in that some EMTALA investigations will occur 2 days after notification of a complaint.

This 3-part webinar series will include the regulations and interpretive guidelines. It will include all 12 sections and an expanded section for on-call physicians and the shared and community care plan process. The federal EMTALA law and the accompanying regulations are complex. This program is structured to make the requirements understandable with the liberal use of examples.

Hospitals will need to ensure their policies, procedures, and training is adequate to ensure compliance with EMTALA. The hospital must know how to do a medical screening exam, how to stabilize a patient and what constitutes an emergency medical condition. Transfers must be compliant with these requirements.

Learner Objectives
Part 2

• Describe that the hospital must maintenance a central log
• Discuss the hospital's requirement to maintain a list of the specific names of physicians who are on call to evaluate emergency department patients
• Recall that CMS has requirements on what must be in the EMTALA sign

Who Should Attend?

Emergency department managers, medical director, ED physicians and nurses and ED education staff; OB managers and nurses; behavioral health director and staff; CNO, nursing supervisors, nurse educators and staff nurses; outpatient directors; compliance officers, legal counsel, and risk manager; directors of hospital-based ambulance services; director of registration and staff; on-call physicians, chief medical officer, chief financial officer, patient safety officer and Joint Commission coordinator.

About the Speaker

Sue Dill Calloway, RN, J.D., has been a nurse attorney and consultant for more than 30 years. Currently, she is president of Patient Safety and Healthcare Education and Consulting and the chief learning officer for the Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation. Prior to her current role, she was the director of hospital patient safety for The Doctors' Company and OHIC Insurance Company. She has led many educational programs for nurses, physicians, and other health care providers. Ms. Dill has authored more than 100 books and numerous articles, is a frequent speaker, and well known across the country in the area of health care law, risk management, and patient safety.