Compliance & Legal
The Louisiana Department of Health and Human Services is the latest entity to face criticism over its handling of electronic health record incentive payments, after it was found to have overpaid hospitals $3.1 million in federal cash.
The Department of Health and Human Services published a final rule for Stage 2 meaningful use Aug. 29 offering hospitals and physicians flexibility for 2014 -- but not nearly as much as CHIME and other professional organizations had asked for.
There's been a lot of talk about compliance lately. Federal and state regulations. HIPAA regulations. But, if you're in charge of healthcare security, compliance is far from sufficient, says Jim Routh, chief information security officer for Aetna, one of the nation's leading diversified healthcare benefits companies.
The Food and Drug Administration, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and Federal Communication Commission hosted a workshop this past week where panel members representing the IT and mobile world participated. For the most part, the constituencies endorsed the risk-based regulatory approach proposed in FDA's Safety Innovation Act.
To those shirking their HIPAA privacy and security duties: get ready to pay up. That's the message the Department of Health and Human Services is sending after it set records Wednesday for imposing the largest HIPAA monetary fine to date on two entities found to be seriously lacking in the security arena.
Think the chances of getting a meaningful use audit are slim? Tell that to the folks who lost their job for doing it wrong, or folks at the four-hospital Scripps Health, who, all told, have undergone 11 meaningful use audits to date. Some say mock audits are indeed the right prescription.
In a year where "compliance and enforcement is really where the action is going to be," it might help to have some advice on how to keep on the right side of patient privacy law.
