Compliance

From Report on Patient Privacy - In his first public comments since his consulting firm officially “exited the field” after wrapping up site visits for the initial 20 compliance audits, the top HIPAA official at KPMG says covered entities (CEs) are failing to complete basic tasks, such as conducting a risk analysis and giving out a notice of private practices. Michael Ebert, national HIPAA services leader for KPMG, which is performing the audits for OCR, also said a review revealed a pharmacy chain that had failed to provide enough physical space to conduct medical consultations. “We have walked into entities that are n Read more

From Report on Patient Privacy - From the look of things, the small cardiac surgery practice in Phoenix completely ignored most of the privacy requirements from the day they went into effect in 2003, and later did the same when the security rule came online two years later, until one winter’s day in 2009 when the Office for Civil Rights came knocking. What first got OCR’s attention was a complaint alleging that Phoenix Cardiac Surgery was posting… Read more

Compliance Blog

By Nina Youngstrom - May 7, 2012
HHS Inspector General Dan Levinson emphasized the importance of the compliance officer’s independence from internal counsel during remarks April 30 at the Health Care Compliance Assn.’s annual Compliance Institute. As health care organizations tackle complex issues, there should be some separation...
By Francie Fernald - April 26, 2012
No doubt you are aware that CMS has posted the proposed FY 2013 Inpatient Prospective Payment Rule for review and comment (comments are due by June 25; Federal Register publication is scheduled for May 11). Perhaps the best news is that this year the scramble to update systems with new ICD-9-CM...
By Francie Fernald - April 10, 2012
The rulemaking released yesterday by HHS contained four different initiatives, which are, at best, somewhat related. The most newsworthy of the four was the proposed delay of ICD-10 to Oct. 1, 2014. The other three proposals would establish (1) a unique health plan identifier as required by HIPAA...