HIM Briefings

The Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (ONC) approved the Chicago-based Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) and the Drummond Group, Inc. (DGI) of Austin, TX, as the first official certifiers of EHR technology in late summer 2010. In late September, ONC also approved InfoGard Laboratories, Inc., in San Luis Obispo, CA. Now that ONC has named at least three authorized testing and certification bodies (ATCB), healthcare vendors can seek certification for their EHR systems and technologies, and providers can begin to look for certified products in the marketplace. Providers must use certified EHR technology to qualify for meaningful use incentive payments.

HHS released a notice of proposed rulemaking in July modifying the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Enforcement Rules under the HITECH Act.

Use this Q&A to test staff members’ knowledge of HIPAA privacy.

In the past year or so, many hospitals have seen a dramatic rise in external audit activity from a multitude of contractors.

Now that fall is in the air, hospitals may feel a chill as Medicare implements the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) through the 2011 inpatient prospective payment system. Aspects include:

The transition to ICD-10 is not in any way the kind of transition we made from ICD-8 to ICD-9, nor is it a simple matter of training coders and installing a new encoder.

Test staff members’ knowledge of the new codes with this quiz

Every October 1, new ICD-9-CM codes take effect. Others are revised or deemed invalid. What do you need to know about this year’s batch of new codes?

Qualifying for EHR meaningful use incentive dollars is no easy feat. A provider needs to be an eligible professional or hospital under the Medicare or Medicaid programs, with the latter also dependent on whether the provider’s state participates in the program. The EHR technologies the provider uses must be certified, and the provider must use those technologies appropriately for at least 90 days and attest to all of the above.