Q: I am a college student who had to miss three days of classes because I was ill. One of my professors needed proof that I was too ill to attend class. When I asked the health center for a note, they said it would be a HIPAA violation to provide any details about my illness. Were they right?
Put CMS’ proposed changes in perspective to see the bigger picture. Comments are due June 24, so hospitals will need to conduct a careful analysis to determine the impact of the proposed changes and submit specific feedback.
HIPAA professionals all work to prevent their facilities from getting fined by OCR for violations of HIPAA’s Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification rules, but you need to stay up to date on what those penalties could be and where OCR stands on enforcement.
If you only bill using the CMS-1500 claim form, then you’ve probably never seen a revenue code. But if you need to bill for facilities, you know revenue codes play an important communicative role between providers and insurers. UB-04 claim forms sent to an insurance company without a revenue code associated with each charge will be rejected.
The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a new fact sheet last week that clarifies the circumstances under which OCR may hold business associates (BA) directly liable.