Featured Report: HIPAA Omnibus: Tips for Clinics

This Week's Healthcare News
Gigaom
The Data Doc: Meet the MD who wants to bring custom healthcare to the masses
Apr,16,2013
by:+Ki Mae Heussner
Here’s a phrase I’ve never heard during a doctor’s visit: “We need your data, girl!”

I was at MDRevolution’s La Jolla, Calif., office about a month ago, sitting in on a consultation as a patient huffed away on a treadmill. A staff member hovered nearby, monitoring the patient’s heart rate and pushing her to keep up the pace. As the staff member took note after note on the patient’s performance and tapped away at a calculator and keyboard to analyze the results, I felt like I was in a research lab, not a doctor’s office — and a lab modeled after a gleaming Apple store.

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ModernHealthcare.com
How to fix the SGR Evaluation and management services at issue
Apr,19,2013
by:+ Rich Daly
Some see the stars aligning for a once-in-a-lifetime shift in the way clinicians are paid. But the future physician payment system could end up looking a lot like the past.

An increasingly common refrain in Washington health policy circles is that “the SGR is on sale.” That is, the cost of scrapping the mechanism that determines physician payments from Medicare, called the sustainable growth-rate formula, dropped earlier this year. That development theoretically increases the likelihood Congress will take action to replace the SGR, as well as the fee-for-service model on which it is built.
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iHealthbeat
IOM Paper Touts the Electronic Sharing of Routine Medical Data
Apr,19, 2013
by:+Staff
The electronic sharing of data collected during regular physician visits could help improve care for the population at large, according to a discussion paper published this week by the Institute of Medicine, FierceHealthIT reports (Hall, FierceHealthIT, 4/18).
Electronic Sharing of Data

Data collected during physician office visits include:

• Blood pressure;
• 
  
• Weight;
• 
  
• Medications;
• 
  
• Disease diagnoses;
• 
  
• Medical history
• 
  
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Featured Report: HIPAA Omnibus: Tips for Clinics
Healthcare Info Security
Apr,19, 2013
by:+Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
When it comes to HIPAA Omnibus Rule compliance, smaller physician practices must guard against complacency because they could be held accountable, warns compliance expert Marjorie Satinsky.

"You can't say 'I'm a small practice, nobody's looking, it's pretty unlikely I'll be the one that gets audited,'" she says in an interview with HealthcareInfoSecurity.

Healthcare providers of all sizes and types potentially can be audited for HIPAA compliance by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights. Last year, 115 organizations were audited by OCR in its pilot HIPAA audit program. OCR officials expect the program to resume after the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30

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Hello Businesses Owner,

I am writing to you because our changing health care system will have a profound effect on all of us. Now that the election is over and the Supreme Court has ruled, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not going away. It will not be repealed and it is up to us to make sure it will work for small businesses and individuals as it was intended to do.

That’s why I joined the Campaign for Better Health Care’s newly created Small Business Health Care Consortium (SBHCC). This consortium views the needs of small businesses and their employees as a top priority.

And, as a member of the Steering Committee of the SBHCC I am personally inviting you to join our network of small businesses who know that only through our collective voices that will assure that the Affordable Care Act live up to its goal of making healthcare affordable for all.

Discussions around health reform have been confusing and, sometimes, even misleading. It is the goal of the SBHCC to provide factual information about the changes that are already happening and those coming in the near future. The SBHCC discusses the benefits and opportunities of the ACA and what Illinois small businesses need to do to make sure this law will benefit them.

Many key components of the ACA are national in nature. For instance, small businesses currently providing health insurance to their employees could be eligible for a 35% tax credit. And, while employers with fewer than 50 full time employees are not required to provide health insurance, their employees can take advantage of the ACA’s benefits.

Other components will be implemented at the State level and these decisions will either enhance small businesses or provide another hurdle. One important component is that all states must implement a health insurance exchange (marketplace). These exchanges will include a rate review process with defined, easy to understand plans to consider and review side-by-side.

As small business owners we share many of the same, serious business challenges. It is my hope that you and your small business peers do want to learn more about the ACA. Let’s take this opportunity to act collectively to get control of health insurance costs and improve access to coverage. The opportunity to create positive change is now. It is about fairness and choices for small businesses. To that end I like for you to hear my own personal story about how the new healthcare law will effect me.

Please go to this link at Healthcare.gov to see my story Watch My Story

Then Join the SBHCC do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or thoughts. I may be reached at wireheadtec@gmail.com or Wirehead Technology

Sincerely,
Howard Lee
CIO
Wirehead Technology
Tel-312-286-8416