The September 22, 2014, deadline to revise business associate agreements (BAA) may have seemed like a date far in the future when the HIPAA omnibus final rule was released January 25, 2013. However, this compliance date is now in our rearview mirror as we continue to move along the road toward establishing and maintaining compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule and Security Rule.
In the wake of several large breaches, OCR is ready to ramp up its oversight of HIPAA compliance as it embarks upon Phase 2 of its HIPAA privacy, security, and breach notification audits. OCR began preparing for this round of audits around the same time that news broke of the second-largest HIPAA breach in the U.S., a hacking incident that affected 4.5 million patients treated at or referred to Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, Inc.
There's bad news for case managers that were hoping that the 2-midnight rule would go away. It's not?at least not in fiscal year (FY) 2015. In the 2015 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule published August 22, CMS said while it may be willing to look into adjusting the payment methodology for the 2-midnight rule, the rule itself will stand.
Baylor Scott and White Health System (BSW) in Temple, Texas, has a new program in place to avoid this. Unlike many programs that just help patients schedule follow-up appointments with primary care physicians, the discharge team at this organization not only helps patients make follow-up appointments with physicians, but also with any specialists the patients need to see as well, including cardiologists, pulmonologists, or even follow-up radiology appointments.
There has been a fair amount of coverage on the documentation requirements needed to assign ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes. While changes in documentation requirements for pregnancy, coma, diabetes, fractures, and pressure ulcers are frequently cited, less information is available regarding the documentation requirements for procedures.
The CMS EHR Incentive Program 2014 attestation deadlines for Medicare-eligible hospitals and professionals draw near (November 30 and December 31, respectively), so MRB asked healthcare professionals to reflect upon their successes and struggles associated with EHR implementation for benchmark survey.
