[Sarcastic graphic omitted, but the temptation was almost too much] CMS is predicting an effective implementation date of October 1, 2016 for its new requirement that you “MOON” observation patients — or just as soon as its proper form of MOONing completes the public comment process (and any revisions). I really don’t know who comes … Read more
OCR release: Advocate Health Care Network (Advocate) has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights (OCR), for multiple potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) involving electronic protected health information (ePHI). Advocate has agreed to pay a settlement amount of $5.55 … Read more
Unfortunately, patients are not likely to get their identities back even though CMS found their records. The records were being offered for sale by a hacker. The seller claims that 48,000 were from a town in Missouri, 210,000 from the “Midwest”, and 397,000 from Georgia. While medical records — especially ones like these that included … Read more
The FBI is quoted as saying there are only two kinds of organizations – those that have had a data breach, and those who just don’t know they have had a data breach. The internet security website Esecurityplanet.com reports that 91% of healthcare organizations have sustained a data breach in the past two years and … Read more
QUESTION: Our hospital owns and operates our local EMS service. We sometimes get calls at the far edge of the county where it is closer to cross the county line and go to our neighboring hospital than to bring the patient all the way back to our home hospital, and then perhaps have to transfer … Read more
Guest post by Steve Wilder In case your holiday barbecues have been taking your attention away from OSHA matters, the agency announced that minimum fines for violations will increase on August 1 for the first time in 25 years. Healthcare facilities of all types should take note, as the maximum fines will increase by 78%! … Read more
Maybe it is because I have passed another decade birthday, but this 4th of July does not seem right when the British people declare themselves free of the globalist EU power structure and Americans face the loss of Constitutional rights in every direction as the government “of the People, by the People, and for the … Read more
It was 6 weeks ago when I announced that I would have a whitepaper on the conflict between drug policies and EMTALA out in 3 weeks. I also mentioned that being in the risk management field, delays might occur. Little did I know that Mr. … Read more
This website turns out a semi-monthly disaster and strange natural occurrences log that shows brief clips of dozens of situations you probably missed in the news. View on Youtube.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine lost his 32 old son to an opiate overdose. That strikes close to home as I have a 33 year old son of my own and a college student daughter. Even more crushing for my friend — his best friend lost a child to an overdose as … Read more