Ever run into a vendor who claims to be a conduit versus a business associate (BA)? It happens all too often, in my experience. Here’s the problem: The conduit exception is a narrow one. If you’re storing protected health information (PHI), even encrypted PHI where you don’t have the encryption key, you’re a BA. Once you sign the business associate agreement (BAA), it applies to you.
Q: Acute respiratory failure is consistently one of our top denied diagnoses. We've tried to address common documentation errors through education but are still seeing issues. How can our CDI staff and coders create more effective queries for this condition?
Are your patients skipping needed appointments? A research letter titled Trends in Outpatient Care Delivery and Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S., published in November by JAMA Internal Medicine, hints that this may be the case.
Q: What type of activity must be audited to comply with the HIPAA requirement to audit electronic medical record (EMR) activity? Does this include every action a user takes within a record and the length of time a user spends in a record?