Fortunately for providers, CMS decided not to cap outpatient payment rates for cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator (CRT-D) procedures at the standardized inpatient rate. The agency announced its decision as part of the CY 2012 OPPS final rule released November 1, 2011.
The dice were rolled and, surprise, you got a letter in the mail from the OCR. You were selected for a HIPAA compliance audit-one of 150 the OCR will conduct in 2012 via its contractor KPMG, LLP.
The need for qualified health information technology (HIT) professionals will increase substantially over the next five years as more hospitals migrate away from paper records and convert to EHRs, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics study. As a result of this growing need, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), in conjunction with Northern Virginia Community College, AHIMA, and Pearson VUE, designed the HIT Pro exams as a means to verify the competency of HIT professionals.
