Patient Administration Department

Home > Medical Manuals > Advanced Nursing Manual > Patient Administration Department

(NCPI) and in Office of Industrial Relations and Naval Medical Command (NAVMEDCOM) instructions and notices.

A POSITION is a specific aggregation of all the current duties and responsibilities contained in a work assignment made by a competent authority to be performed by one employee during a full working schedule, whether that schedule be full-time or part-time. Being occupied or vacant does not in itself change a position’s identity or character.

All civilian positions must be established in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. At the local level the command is authorized to establish individual civilian positions within the overall civilian ceiling allowance established by NAVMEDCOM. Positions in grades GS-12 and above and some special categories require approval by NAVMEDCOM.

PATIENT ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT

This department provides for and coordinates all administrative matters related to the admission and disposition of inpatients and outpatients, to include verifying patient eligibility for treatment, processing inpatient (clinical) records and medical boards, preparing correspondence, reports, and statistics pertaining to the professional care and treatment of patients, receiving, storing, and releasing patients’ personal effects, and performing the personnel records function for active duty military patients. The department may be divided into Registrar Division, Patient Personnel Services Division, Medical Information Services Division, Medical Records Processing Division, and Outpatient Administration Division. The size of the medical treatment facility will determine what divisions and branches the department is divided into. The following divisions and branches discussed here illustrate a large facility. Some functions may not be the same at another facility, but it shows a good general overview of the Patient Administration Department and their related functions.

REGISTRAR DIVISION

This division provides and coordinates procedures for the admission and disposition of patients (including determining the eligibility of the patient for admission), receives, maintains, and stores health records on active duty personnel, arranges transportation of patients to and from other hospitals, including movement of patients through the aeromedical evacuation system, registers births with the state, operates a Medical Holding Company Branch for active duty enlisted patients, and provides general patient information and advice to the public. Some large facilities have further divided the Registrar Division into branches.

Military Health Records

Branch This branch receives, stores, and maintains health records of active duty patients, and prepares message and speedletter notification of active duty patient admission.

Admission Branch

This branch performs the clerical function of admitting inpatients, receives, tags, and maintains temporary custody of patients’ baggage, maintains a file of patients scheduled for admission and completes preadmission paperwork prior to admission, verifies eligibility for admission through presentation of a valid identification card and use of the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS), makes bed assignments with a local bed control system, prepares the daily list of admissions and dispositions, and compiles and distributes a daily list of seriously ill and very seriously ill patients and makes necessary notification to the next of kin and higher authority.

A patient who is admitted is given one of the following admission category codes:

“D”—Direct. The admission should be recorded as D if the reporting facility is the first medical treatment facility to place the patient under treatment or observation for the current episode of illness or injury.

“FT(M)”—From Transfer (Navy, Army, or Air Force medical facility). The admission shall be considered FT(M) when the inpatient is received from a Navy, Army, or Air Force medical facility. NOTE: If the patient is referred for consultation and subsequently admitted for treatment or observation, the admission category will be D.