When it comes to data breaches, it's not a question of if, but a matter of when, says Cris V. Ewell, PhD, chief information security officer at Seattle Children's Hospital, Research, and Foundation.
Physician documentation must include sufficient detail to ensure that case managers can accurately estimate LOS, says Glenn Krauss, BBA, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, PCS, FCS, C-CDIS, CCDS, an independent health information management consultant in Madison, Wis.
As part of the 2013 OPPS final rule, CMS finalized a clarification to 42 CFR 419.2(b) that could cause confusion in the future if hospitals are audited by third-party payers or by Medicare contractors who do not fully understand the intent of the language or how CMS develops payment rates, says Jugna Shah, MPH, president of Nimitt Consulting based in Washington, D.C.
Despite efforts to prevent data breaches in healthcare, they continue to cause alarm. Almost 20 million patient health records have been compromised in the past two years, according to statistics from HHS.
