Who would have thought that buying gas with a credit card or wearing a pacemaker could leave a person's information exposed? Yet highly sophisticated credit card skimming devices at gas stations are stealing from consumers, and healthcare organizations are concerned about the potential for malicious tampering or the theft of PHI from wireless medical devices such as pacemakers. Hidden vulnerabilities lie in everyday activities like these, and some of those vulnerabilities can expose PHI and put healthcare organizations at risk.
Q. We are a claims repricer and maintain a secure claims department. When outside vendors, such as building maintenance people, enter the secure area, are they required to sign a logbook indicating what time and date they entered and exited the claims department?
At 2:50 p.m. on Monday, April 15, two bombs went off at the finish line of the 117th annual Boston Marathon. Three people were killed, hundreds were injured, and local case managers needed to help deal with the crisis.
CMS is reexamining inpatient criteria because it has seen a significant increase in the number of patients spending more than 24 hours in observation. Providers are worried that a Recovery Auditor will deny a short inpatient stay for lack of medical necessity and recoup payment years later. So instead, some facilities place patients in observation for longer time periods.
