Here's one trend industry observers say healthcare organizations can expect to see now and in the future: heightened patient awareness and concern about the security of their private medical data.
Organizations need to determine whether they have fully implemented the Security Rule. The HIPAA Security Rule has been around for a while, but many organizations have not implemented all of its requirements.
Somewhere between the third urgent item on your to-do list, getting your budgets prepared, and responding to the latest auditor's requests lies the omnipresent responsibility of nurturing the validity of the medical record. HIM professionals have traditionally been the legal custodians of the record. (After all, who else is daring enough to testify in court on the accuracy of the EHR?) Have we also by default become the custodians of data integrity?
CMS’ rules for properly applying condition code 44 are hard enough to understand, but when it comes to putting those rules into practice, things can get even more difficult.
As patient advocates, case managers often need to question physician decisions that do not follow evidence-based criteria or that go against patient wishes.
