DawnS

I am sure this topic is somewhere else but I have not been unable to find it for my question. Currently my organization drops an unit antigen charge when testing. If the unit is returned and issued to another patient they do not drop another charge. This is tedious to track and is often missed. I have been told by two other organization that they drop an antigen charge every time the unit leaves the blood bank. I am unable to find anything that gives me the correct way to charge but I do not want to go the other way and be in violation of CMS. Does anyone know the rule for this and where I can find documentation? Thank you in advance.

Hello, I searched the forum but the last time this topic was covered was in 2010. I am helping to build a blood bank system and am reviewing all of the charges associated with testing. I noticed that this organization only bills for the professional fee associated with a reaction. I have been told that we cannot charge for the actual workup due to CMS reimbursement but others have stated that we should be charging for testing. If so, should we charge a flat fee or charge for each test?

Hello all, I am not sure how to ask this question so I hope to not confuse you. Currently the blood bank I work at is restructuring due to a mass loss of employees recently. There are many things that have been overlooked for some time and now are being addressed. One is the lack of clarity regarding our process for identifying clinically significant antibodies. There is no clear process in place other than it is best to rule out with the 3pos/3neg rule. This has caused a lot of confusion for staff because this is not always possible. And often different staff members have a different idea on how this should look. I would like to put together a this-then-that kind of approach for rule outs but I am fairly new and feel a little overwhelmed with this project. I have been reading my tech manual and thought it was discussed in more detail but have yet to find clear instruction. What approach have you taken to standardize antibody ID?

Hello all, I currently work for a level one trauma center that utilizes a dumbwaiter to transport coolers to OR and ERT. The problem we are having is when we send coolers up on the dumbwaiter there are times when these coolers do not get retrieved or someone retrieves them but somehow they get lost in transit. Like many other hospitals all departments are short staffed so no one really wants to give up a FTE for this duty. I am just curious to know if your hospital has this problem and what you are doing to resolve it? Thank you for any input. I will add we are working on putting a Haemobank in the OR and already have one in ERT.

Hello all, I have been working in the blood bank of a level one trauma center for almost 7 years and October of 2018 took the job as supervisor. I am learning many things but have a long way to go. Currently I am looking for a better way to report deviations. We have a form called the deviation investigation report (DIR) and I do not like the way it is structured, it is very cumbersome and some parts I feel are redundant. I am looking for a more simplistic way for my staff to report errors but because I have only worked in this blood bank I am not familiar with other options. Would any of you be willing to share the form you use for reporting so I can see what others are doing? Also, I know errors are not supposed to be punitive but due to this some techs are not making an effort to improve their processes. How do you encourage your staff to improve without the option of discipline? Thank you for any advice you may offer.

Congratulations, I have not been on this forum for very long but you have already helped me in many ways. My presentation over Anti-G and its significance in OB patients was a huge success. I was asked to present it again at an university. Thank you for all you help.

Hello all, I work in a level one trauma center that is extremely busy. Most staff members are ready to go when their shift ends. This has caused a lack of communication between shifts. We are exploring ways to encourage more communication but so far have run into resistance. We are considering putting a log at each station where staff can write down important information from their shift for the shift to follow. Is there anyone in this forum that has done this with any success? Do you have suggestions for other ways to open up communication? Do you have an example of a form you use to make this work? Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

If my memory serves me right the patient has 5 antibodies: S, Jsa, V, Fya, and K and she is pregnant.

Hello all, We have a patient that has multiple Antibodies (5) and requires a titer. We just recently hired a new tech from another facility and she stated that they would use one cell positive for all antigens (if possible) to do a titer and then if the titer was significant they would split the titer out to identify which antibody was causing the high titer. I am curious to know if any other facilities practice this. Thank you for your input.

Thank you all for your response. We will more than likely do an internal study to evaluate potassium levels.

Hello all, I work for a level one trauma center and currently we set our expiration of our neonatal aliquots in a bag to expire in 72 hours. We are wanting to change our policy to reflect a 7-day expiration on neonatal aliquots due to information that we received stating that most facilities have a 7-day expiration and some even do 10-days. I would like to back our decision up with facts and am wondering if you set your neonatal aliquots to expire at 7- or even 10-days expiration where did you pull your data? Did you do an internal study on potassium levels?

Thank you for the links, I love the blood bank guy.

Hello all, I am new here and am loving all of the great information. I have recently volunteered to do a presentation on Anti-G at a local seminar. I work for a level one trauma center but we don't encounter Anti-G very often. I would like to cover how to identify Anti-G and the presence of one in a clinical case. Does anyone have a procedure they would be willing to share? I tried my local reference laboratory without success. 😒