By Matt Fisher – The seemingly non-stop move from one natural disaster or health emergency to another places a significant strain on the healthcare system. Providers either cannot reach a facility, whether hospital or otherwise, or patients overwhelm a particular facility.
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The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) announced a first-of-its kind standardized model Patient Request for Health Information form to help healthcare providers streamline patient health information request processes
By Matt Fisher – Healthcare entities have received another warning from the OCR concerning yet another aspect of HIPAA compliance. OCR’s settlement with St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center focuses on controlling when and how PHI is released.
The ONC oversees health IT standards and policies, including secure health data exchange would face a 36 percent budget cut reducing its budget from $60 million to $38 million. Full-time staff would be cut from 188 employees to 162.
By Rita Bowen – As of September 30, 2013, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has received over 141,754 complaints. Over 24,500 of these led to OCR investigations, resulting in required changes to privacy practices, corrective actions or technical assistance.
By Rita Bowen – The Health Care Compliance Association’s Compliance Institute is a must-attend event for provider, hospital and health system professionals working with any form of healthcare compliance.
By Art Gross – Deven McGraw, deputy director of HHS OCR has announced that the department’s plans for initiating onsite audits is currently on hold and will remain so until more than 200 desk audits have been completed.
By Art Gross – According to an article over on tripwire, a covered entity is facing serious penalties after the Office for Civil Rights issued them a hefty fine for their failure to comply with audit procedures including review, modification and termination of users’ access.
By Matt Fisher – While home on paternity leave taking care of my baby daughter, I’ve had a fair amount fo time to think about different issues, which means I think about HIPAA.