Although the results of the Ponemon Institute's Third Annual Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy & Data Security don't paint a pretty picture when it comes to protection of PHI, healthcare organizations can use the dismal statistics to improve compliance.
A former clinical director for Biscayne Milieu, a Miami-based mental health clinic, was sentenced to 100 months in prison for his participation in a Medicare fraud scheme involving the submission of more than $50 million in fraudulent billings to Medicare, announced the Assistant Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Florida, the FBI Miami Field Office, and the HHS-OIG Office of Investigations Miami Office in a press release.
Law enforcement officials in Texas, Florida, and New York recently announced plea agreements and fines involving the billing of an unapproved prescription drug and Medicare fraud.
You're reviewing a case file and discover that a patient's recent readmission is due to a medication prescribing error made by a physician. Do you report it?
There are six generic approaches to managing risk, and the approach an organization chooses to use will depend on many factors. For example, how real is this risk? Can it actually become a problem, or is it merely theoretical? Management will want to decide whether the risk is likely to happen and whether it is possible to determine when it may happen. This will also assist in appropriate allocation of resources to focus on material risk areas.
One thing is certain: You don't want to wait until you receive a notification letter from OCR before you begin preparing for a HIPAA audit, says Dena Boggan, CPC, CMC, CCP, HIPAA privacy/security officer at St. Dominic Jackson (Miss.) Memorial Hospital.
