SEHCB PROPOSES 3 MORE BEST PRACTICES

At its September 9, 2008 meeting, the School Employees Health Care Board (SEHCB) proposed three more Best Practices Standards. Of particular note to OAHU members is the proposed Vendor Compensation Transparency Best Practice.  The standard is not limited to health insurance agents but would apply “to any person or entity placing coverage or providing any other service to a health plan sponsor,” i.e., a public school district.  Such person or entity would be required to disclose to the health plan sponsor all sources of compensation arising out of that business relationship including but not limited to fees, commissions, rebates, or any other payments of any kind.  OAHU is in the process of reviewing this proposed Best Practices standard and will provide comments at a future SEHCB meeting.

The other two proposed Best Practices are:

1. Tobacco-Free Schools -  This Best Practice would require each public school district to establish a tobacco-free school campus policy which provides at a minimum, that no student, staff member, volunteer, or school visitor is permitted to smoke, inhale, dip, chew or use tobacco at any time, including non-school hours, in any building, facility, or vehicle owned, leased, rented, or chartered by the district or on school grounds, athletic grounds, or parking lots and at school-sponsored events.
2. Nonpayment for Egregious Medical Errors – This Best Practice focuses on relieving health insurers from having to pay hospitals for certain specified preventable errors. The six preventable errors listed are:
   (1) surgery on the wrong body part, (2) surgery on the wrong patient, (3) the wrong surgical procedure,
   (4) unintended retention of a foreign object in the body after surgery, (5) a medication error which causes patient death or injury, and (6) administration of incompatible blood or blood products which causes patient death or injury.

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