Although it hasn't released many details yet, OCR plans to resume its audits to assess compliance with HIPAA privacy, security, and breach notification requirements in 2014. The government agency also plans to expand the audit focus to include business associates (BA).
To comply with the HIPAA omnibus final rule, healthcare organizations need to revise their risk assessment process to determine whether they must notify affected individuals of a breach.
Every healthcare organization should develop and implement a policy and a well-defined process that provides guidance for managing incident and breach response.
This year's Recovery Auditor Benchmarking Report surveyed 325 respondents, representing both small and large hospitals, from all four Recovery Auditor regions. It may not come as a huge surprise to many that the main theme of this year's survey is the expanding state of the Recovery Auditors (RA), and the fact that they continue to gain speed and extend their reach.
There has been some confusion surrounding a possible Recovery Auditor-related provision in the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, also known as the fiscal cliff deal.
Being audited is rarely fun. After all, you're probably going to lose money, face a fine, or both. More and more entities are auditing healthcare claims-Recovery Auditors, Medicare Integrity Contractors, MACs, FIs, commercial payers, and on and on.
