Q: A pain specialist practice called to set up an apointment for my wife while she was out. She has various medical problems, and I am often in contact with her doctors. I asked if I could set up the appointment, and they said it would be a HIPAA violation to speak to anyone other than the patient about their schedule. Is that correct?
Accountable care organizations that have switched tracks to take on downside risk tend to be larger, located in urban areas, and more successful on financial metrics, according to a recent report. However, the report did not find any significant relationship between switching to downside risk tracks and improvement on quality or public health metrics.
March is National Professional Social Work Month, and the National Association for Social Workers has released a set of resources to highlight the work performed by more than 680,000 social workers across the country.
University of Washington Medicine in Washington state is notifying 974,000 patients about a data breach which left their health information exposed online for weeks. This follows a recent breach announced by the University of Connecticut Health which affected 326,629 individuals in December.
Q: At the doctor's office where I work, patients are often friends or family members of staff. I heard in passing that my co-worker's boyfriend was coming in for an appointment later that day, when I mentioned it to the co-worker, she said she would be filing a complaint for a HIPAA violation. Is this really a HIPAA violation?
Community Hospital in Munster, Indiana, is disputing an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report that found DRG assignment errors and incorrect inpatient rehabilitation facility (IRF) claims, resulting in an projected $22,051,602 in overpayments.
