CPHRM Basic CPHRM 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A hospital implements a 'safe harbor' policy encouraging staff to report near-misses without fear of punishment. This is an example of promoting:
- Mandatory reporting compliance
- A just culture or non-punitive safety culture (Correct answer)
- Peer review immunity
- Regulatory disclosure
Correct answer: A just culture or non-punitive safety culture
A just culture distinguishes between human error and reckless behavior, encouraging reporting by ensuring fair, non-punitive responses to honest mistakes.
Question 2: The National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) requires mandatory reporting of:
- All hospital incident reports
- Malpractice payments and adverse licensure or clinical privilege actions (Correct answer)
- Patient complaints filed with state health departments
- OSHA violations in clinical settings
Correct answer: Malpractice payments and adverse licensure or clinical privilege actions
The NPDB requires reporting of malpractice payments and adverse actions against practitioners' licenses or clinical privileges.
Question 3: When a risk manager discovers that a physician's expired DEA license was not caught during re-credentialing, this represents a failure in:
- Claims management
- Credentialing and privileging oversight (Correct answer)
- Utilization management
- Discharge planning
Correct answer: Credentialing and privileging oversight
Credentialing and privileging processes must verify that practitioners maintain current licensure and certifications to practice safely.
Question 4: Which type of risk control involves physically redesigning the environment to reduce the chance of patient harm, such as installing bed exit alarms?
- Administrative controls
- Engineering controls (Correct answer)
- Behavioral controls
- Financial controls
Correct answer: Engineering controls
Engineering controls modify the physical environment or equipment to reduce risk, such as installing bed alarms to detect patient movement and prevent falls.
Question 5: A 'claims-made' malpractice policy requires a 'tail' (extended reporting endorsement) because:
- It only covers physicians and not nurses
- Claims must be both filed and reported during the active policy period (Correct answer)
- The policy automatically expires after each claim
- Premiums increase after any reported incident
Correct answer: Claims must be both filed and reported during the active policy period
Claims-made policies cover claims reported while the policy is active; a tail extends coverage to claims filed after the policy ends for incidents that occurred during it.
Question 6: Under EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act), a hospital with an emergency department must:
- Provide free care to all uninsured patients
- Provide a medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment regardless of ability to pay (Correct answer)
- Transfer all unstable patients to public hospitals
- Accept only patients referred by primary care physicians
Correct answer: Provide a medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment regardless of ability to pay
EMTALA requires hospitals to screen and stabilize any patient presenting to the emergency department, regardless of insurance status or ability to pay.
Question 7: Which approach to risk financing involves a group of healthcare organizations pooling resources to share losses and fund a joint reserve?
- Commercial excess liability insurance
- Risk retention group or captive pool (Correct answer)
- Individual self-insurance trust
- Stop-loss reinsurance only
Correct answer: Risk retention group or captive pool
Risk retention groups and captive pools allow multiple healthcare organizations to collectively retain and fund their shared risks.
CPHRM Basic CPHRM 5
A hospital implements a 'safe harbor' policy encouraging staff to report near-misses without fear of punishment.
This is an example of promoting: