There are many misconceptions about HIPAA throughout the healthcare industry. In particular, business associates (BA) who provide cloud services to covered entities (CE) often have the misconception that they do not need to be concerned with HIPAA if they are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). BAs with this school of thought should be prepared to get their checkbooks out when the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) comes calling.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced December 8, 2014 that it fined an Alaska behavioral health service $150,000 for potential HIPAA violations. OCR entered into a resolution agreement with Anchorage Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS), a nonprofit behavioral healthcare service, per the announcement (see www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/enforcement/examples/acmhs/amchs-capsettle...).
As new and more effective treatment options are created and evaluated, AMA must update the CPT® Manual to add and revise codes that allow providers to accurately report the work they performed.
The 2015 updates include more than 500 changes, including more than 250 new codes that impact nearly every section. In the 2015 CPT Manual, only the integumentary and respiratory system sections remain unchanged.
Beginning January 1, 2015, physicians will no longer need to provide certification for an inpatient admission unless the admission is expected to last for at least 20 days or the case is an outlier.
Since portions of the reproductive system use some of the same structures as the urinary system, including the urethra, codes for conditions involving both male and female reproductive systems appear in Chapter 14 of ICD-10-CM, Diseases of the Genitourinary System.
Coding for sepsis requires a strong knowledge of ICD-9-CM coding guidelines, as well as complete and accurate documentation. That's not a surprise to any coding professional. They need those two elements to successfully code any medical record.
