Chasing down information on incomplete records can be overwhelming and a lost cause. What do you do when a medical record is incomplete 30 days after discharge (or 14 in California’s case) and thus does not meet regulatory standards?
It was a gorgeous afternoon and a perfect day to hold an outdoor summer barbecue for the HIM department at Central Peninsula Hospital in Soldotna, Alaska.
Privacy officers must ensure their hospital removes potential patient identifiers from data sets used for reasons outside of treatment, payment, and healthcare operations, privacy experts say.
It has been quite a year in the privacy world, hasn't it? The OCR website has reported 500 breaches of unsecured PHI affecting 500 or more individuals, totaling more than 12 million patients. There has been an increase in HIPAA-related criminal sentences involving jail time. And private lives are no longer private.
How quickly time flies! As 2012 has now come to an end, it seems to be a good time to reflect on some of the challenging standards hospitals faced this year.
