Under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH Act), eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals must make a "meaningful use" of "certified electronic health technology" or face reductions in Medicare reimbursement during Medicare's 2015 fiscal year (which begins October 1, 2014).  One of ...

Heartbleed creates cyber security vulnerability for health information technology supported by certain OpenSSL encryption technology. This article reports on the flaw and available resources to address the issue.
AHIMA issues guidance, "Appropriate Use of the Copy and Paste Functionality in Electronic Health Records", in response to OIG's expressed concerns about risks to quality care, patient safety and fraudulent documentation.
Reminder:  The deadline for Medicare eligible professionals to attest to meaningful use of certified electronic health record technology for the 2013 program year is just two weeks away.  Attestations are due on March 31, 2014 at 11:59 pm EST.  Click here for addition information about the EHR incentive program as well as to register or attest to  ...
On March 10, 2014, CMS issued Guidance on how health care providers can take advantage of hardship exceptions to the 2015 and 2016 Medicare reimbursement reductions associated with a failure to make a Meaningful Use (MU) of certified EHRs in 2014 due EHR vendor issues. Importantly, hospitals who are new to MU must file a hardship application by April 1 ...

Saturday, March 1, 2014, is the deadline for entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to report to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) all "small breaches" of unsecured protected health information that occurred during 2013.  Entities subject to this ...

Update:  On April 1, 2014, President Obama signed into law the "Doc Fix" bill, Public Law 113-93, which extends the deadline for ICD-10 for an additional year.  Section 212 of this law prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from adopting ICD-10 code sets prior to October 1, 2015.

Everyone is a-twitter (pun intended) about the ...

The Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration has fined Triple-S Salud Inc. (TSS) $6.8 million for failure to safeguard Medicare beneficiary numbers. This far exceeds any fine imposed by or settlement reached by the United States Office of Civil Rights to date for HIPAA data breaches. How did the fine reach such a staggering amount? What ...

by Ann F. Triebsch

As observers of data security enforcement are aware, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) determined on January 16, 2014, that even entities that are already subject to the privacy and security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are also subject to FTC jurisdiction and ...

On Friday, February 7, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an extension until 11:59 pm on March 31, 2014 for Eligible Professionals to submit their 2013 EHR Meaningful Use (MU) attestation.  In addition, Eligible Hospitals that had trouble submitting their 2013 MU attestation may be able to retroactively ...

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