I promised in a previous “Standards of the month”column that I would address Joint Commission standard MM.04.01.01 (orders for medication are clear and accurate), as this standard made it onto the 2010 top 10 list of standards with which hospitals were noncompliant. In fact, 30% of hospitals failed to comply with it.
After 10 years, the requirements for signatures on lab requisitions are still in flux; CMS published the latest change to the lab signature requirements in the 2011 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) final rule published in the Federal Register November 29, 2010.
A group of prognosticators asked to predict what lies ahead in 2011 says the healthcare industry faces new and continuing challenges as it works to protect the security and privacy of patients' PHI.
With newfound authority, some state attorneys general (AG) are beginning to take aim at covered entities (CE) that run afoul of HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules.
Q. I work in patient financial services at a hospital. Like me, several of my coworkers have aging parents. Sometimes at lunch, we discuss the medical problems of our parents, who are not patients at our hospital. My supervisor says these discussions of family members' medical problems violate HIPAA. Is this true?
