News

The 2017 OIG Work Plan is out, and there are a few areas that may affect case management, particularly with regard to the 2-midnight rule, skilled nursing facilities, ambulance services, and home health agencies. Regardless of the changes in each year’s Work Plan, the document as a whole should remind case managers that they need to comply with the rules.

An insurer agreed to a multimillion dollar HIPAA settlement in the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) second HIPAA settlement of the year. The agency looks to be on track to continue last year’s trend of increased activity and high-profile multimillion dollar settlements.

Q. Should we include employees’ personal mobile devices in our risk analysis?

Q: We started providing allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplants on an outpatient basis for some of our patients. Until just recently, none of them were Medicare patients, but now we have some patients that meet the physician-established criteria for the transplant being done as an outpatient. How do we include this on the claim to ensure that the cost of all components of this service are reported?

An Illinois healthcare network is the first organization hit with a HIPAA settlement fine for violating the timely breach notification requirement, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced January 9.

Q. Are we required to report cybersecurity incidents to federal agencies other than the Office for Civil Rights, such as the Department of Homeland Security?

Q: We have one older radiology machine that still uses film. We are working on replacing it and don’t use it very much. Is there anything special that we need to do when reporting studies done on “old faithful”?

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of the National Coordinator Health Information Technology released a fact sheet on disclosing protected health information (PHI) in support of public health activities conducted by state or federal public health agencies.