Q: How far in advance are we required to provide an Advance Beneficiary Notice of Noncoverage (ABN)? If multiple entities are involved in ordering and providing a noncovered service such as a lab test, does each entity need to issue a separate ABN?
A recent survey of 600 data center experts across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific has found that inefficient data removal and data sanitation processes are costing some organizations hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
Q: My doctor emailed me while he was on vacation, and the email had the automatic “sent from my iPhone” message at the end. Is it a HIPAA violation for doctors to use their personal cell phone to communicate with patients?
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) will be taking a closer look at payments for inpatient claims subject to CMS’ post-acute transfer policy, according to a recent update to the OIG work plan.
Q: Case management requires a lot of communication with patients. What happens when communication can’t happen because of a patient’s temporary or permanent condition?
Socioeconomic and racial disparities were found in health behaviors and receipt of cancer screening for patients in Indiana, according to a recent population health study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the Regenstrief Institute.
Twelve state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit last month against Medical Informatics Engineering Inc., in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for failing to secure its computer systems, which resulted in a HIPAA data breach that compromised the data of more than 3.9 million people.
Q: A physician documented that a pregnant patient is obese, and the patient’s chart has a listed body mass index (BMI) score. Can we assign an ICD-10-CM BMI code in this instance or should this never be done for an obstetrics patient?
