Model Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP) Released by OCR and ONC
The HIPAA Omnibus Rule compliance date is on Monday. Are you ready?
I’m sure the answer for most organizations is NO!
In fact, the real question that I hear most organizations asking is what they need to do to be compliant with the new HIPAA omnibus regulations. One of my more popular video interviews was on the subject of HIPAA Omnibus with Rita Bowen from HealthPort. That might be one place to start.
OCR and ONC recently released some model HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practice forms to help with compliance. Why they are just releasing them a week before organizations are suppose to be compliant is a little puzzling...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - September 20, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: John Lynn Tags: EMR David Harlow Health Blawg HealthPort HIPAA Audit HIPAA Compliance HIPAA Omnibus OCR ONC Rita Bowen Source Type: blogs
Who has jursidiction to prevent self-dealing?
Lots of people expressed dismay at my Friday report concerning the self-dealing between Neighborhood Health Plan and its owner, Partners Healthcare System.The unanswered question, though, is which of the alphabet soup of state agencies has responsibility for this matter. Who approved this? Who can investigate it? Who can change it?It is definitely not the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA). Is it the Health Connector? It is the Health Policy Commission? Is it the Executive Office of Health and Human Services? Is this a matter for the Attorney General's jurisdiction because of ...
Source: Running a hospital - September 15, 2013 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
Privacy and Security: How to Make Sense of all the Regulations
Wed, 8/21/2013 - 9:01amRob Brull0 Comments var addthis_config = {ui_click: true,data_track_clickback: true,data_ga_social: true,data_ga_property: UA-317164-6}; It seems like not a week goes by without some organization being fined in excess of a million dollars for some type of PHI (Protected Health Information) security breach. The latest breach this week has to do with a leased photocopier. Apparently Affinity Health Plan, a New York-based managed care plan, returned a leased photocopier that contained PHI on the hard drive for up to 344,579 individuals.
According to an article by Healthcare IT Ne...
Source: NeoTool Healthcare IT Blog - August 21, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: rob.brull at corepointhealth.com Source Type: blogs
Senate Hearing: Health Information Technology Using it to Improve Care – Meaningful Use may Not Be So Meaningful After All
Recently, the Senate Finance Committee held a hearing entitled "Health Information Technology (HIT): Using it to Improve Care." Health information technology is a topic we have previously addressed in the past few months.
The purpose of this hearing was to engage the provider community on issue pertaining to HIT and the adoption of electronic health records (EHR). Key topics of discussion during the hearing included delaying the Stage 2 Meaningful Use requirements, achieving interoperability among EHR systems, providing additional resources to small and rural hospitals to adopt HIT systems, and imposing additi...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 19, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Things Your EMR Will Never Do
EMRs can be powerful tools for building practice efficiency.
But they can’t do it all.
Ruth Sara Hart-Schneider, sales and marketing director for Cincinnati-based Salix, says health care providers are still paying too many people to move too much paper. Her firm helps them to fill the gaps left after even the most successful EMR implementation.
Salix specializes in workflow automation, business process outsourcing and litigation support. Health care makes up about 30 percent of its workload.
Hart-Schneider works with physician practices, hospitals and a variety of other health care clients, such as durable medical equip...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - August 15, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: James Ritchie Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR and EHR Interviews EMR Implementation EMR Technology Healthcare Healthcare Interoperability HealthCare IT Hospital EHR Hospitals Practice Management EHR Implementatio Source Type: blogs
“OK Glass — Go to Lab Results”
The following is a guest post by Jon Fox MD, Founder of HealthApp Connect.
This changes everything.
Last week I had the opportunity to demo Google Glass. I test drove the Glass of one of the four thousand “Explorers” who were lucky enough to “win” a pair of specs from Big G. And as a healthcare provider, I must say that it knocked my socks off.
As you probably know, Google’s innovative Glass is a small rectangular mirror held in front of your right eye by a lightweight titanium band. You turn on your Glass by tapping this band, or alternatively tilting your head back. Then a transparent prompt appears in front o...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 17, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: John Lynn Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Technology Healthcare Healthcare Devices HealthCare IT Google Glass Google Glass Explorers Google Glass Healthcare HIPAA Guidelines Jon Fox Source Type: blogs
Is The Cloud The Best EHR Model For Small Practices?
Over the last few years, the use of EMRs in medical practices has grown dramatically, with over 50 percent of office-based physicians now using such systems. However, physicians still face major barriers in adopting EMRs, including costs, usability issues and impacts on doctor productivity.
One way of reducing the complexity of EMR installations — doing more for less — is to go with a Web-based model of EMR use, argues “The Cloud: The Best EHR Solution for Small Practices.”
This model, also known as “software as a service” (SaaS) stores patient data in the cloud, accessible from any ...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - June 5, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Katherine Rourke Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR EMR Implementation EMR Technology Healthcare HealthCare IT mHealth Patient Portal Practice Management Chart Logic EHR Cloud EMR Cloud Mobile EHR Mobile EMR SAAS EHR Source Type: blogs
What Does a Medical Practice In Kenya Have in Common With a Medical Practice in the US?
At NCE last year, I got an opportunity to meet Dr. Sidney Nesbitt. Dr. Nesbitt a pediatrician in Nairobi, Kenya and is very interested in practice management things like work flow improvements, hiring the right staff and working on making his clinic a better place for both him, his staff and his patients.
I recently heard from Dr. Nesbitt. He shared with me that a group of MIT grad students conducted an assessment of his office in Nairobi in an effort to make improvements in several areas of his practice e.g. workflow, checkin, collections, triage of the practice.
In the fall of 2009, a team of four MIT students applied ...
Source: Pediatric Inc - May 8, 2013 Category: Pediatricians Authors: Brandon Tags: Consulting Leadership Practice Management The Business of Medicine Training Health Health administration Kenya Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT Nairobi Pediatrics United States Source Type: blogs
The Reality of SaaS
Recently I was asked if SaaS/Cloud computing is appropriate for small practice EHR hosting.I responded"SaaS in general is good.However, most SaaS is neither private nor secure.Current regulatory and compliance mandates require that you find a cloud hosting firm which will indemnify you against privacy breeches caused by security issues in the SaaS hosting facility.Also, SaaS is only as good as the internet connections of the client sites. We've had a great deal of experience with 'last mile' issues"To add further detail, Bill Gillis, the CIO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization (BIDCO) responded"We built, ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - March 26, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
#6 Learning Steps to Budget for Your Medical Practice [Practice Management VideoCast]
In this episode, Chip and I have our first guest. Paul Vanchiere was kind enough to sit down with us to talk about budgeting.
Why budgeting? Well, I suspect that this is an area where many practice don’t excel. If you are part of a larger group, the likelihood you have a sound budgeting process that is sophisticated. But for those in smaller offices, not so much.
Paul is a great guest because he has been worked in many different healthcare setting. This experience has given him a unique perspective that I find interesting. And it so happens, he’s worked a lot on budgeting for both large and small practice.
...
Source: Pediatric Inc - March 13, 2013 Category: Pediatricians Authors: Brandon Tags: Pediatric Practice Management VideoCast Reporting Revenue The Business of Medicine Source Type: blogs
Who will save the independent physicians?
The Wall Street Journal is my favorite newspaper, but its Op-Ed page is not the place to turn to for sober, non-partisan analysis. So I was only a little bit surprised to read The Doctor’s Office as Union Shop, which blames the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for ushering in “a potentially radical factor in the transformation of health care –the doctor as union worker.” The author, Dr. David Leffell from Yale Medical School, asserts that the ACA’s reimbursement schemes are forcing doctors to abandon their practices, although he doesn’t get into specifics. But reading between the lines it’...
Source: Health Business Blog - February 1, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: David E. Williams of the Health business blog Tags: Physicians Source Type: blogs
