Archive for The Month of June, 2020
Archive for the Month of June, 2020
Welcome to the medical billing blog archive for the month of June, 2020.
Here you will find links to every article added to the Outsource Management Group web site during the month of June, 2020.
You can browse this month's archives by clicking the "More" button from any of the excerpts below.
Is the COVID-19 Pandemic Unraveling HIPAA Rules?
Art Gross poses a great question over at Health IT Answers… Is COVID-19 unraveling HIPPA? “The Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA) was created in 1996 to protect patients and their privacy, and if you are in healthcare, you already know this and are familiar with what it means. With a goal to ensure that people could maintain health insurance between jobs, thus the “Portability” part of the name; along with a second, and critical goal, to address the “Accountability” of insurance to protect the confidentiality part of patient information and data. This meant mandating standards of privacy for electrotonic protected health information (PHI) and data that was …
Poor Payer Reimbursements are Effecting Practices During COVID-19
HealthIT Answers posted an interesting article on how the pandemic is effecting providers. “Most physicians who have been practicing for a few decades remember the days when private payer reimbursements dwarfed Medicare reimbursements. That dynamic has long since flipped, starting with the 2008 recession. Reimbursements have been flat or have lost value from inflation, while practice costs have seen double-digit increases. Meanwhile, hospitals and insurance-owned health networks have seen reimbursements increase to 300% or more of Medicare in some cases, whereas it’s not uncommon for private practices to receive rates far below Medicare standards. Many practices have seen their volumes decrease from 30% to up to 90%, and a significant …
EHR and Interoperability Must Evolve to Integrate Genomic Data
“As genomic data becomes more prevalent and complex, EHRs must adapt and evolve to provide better patient care, according to a statement released by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG). Genetic and genomic testing has become an important tool to enhance clinical decision-making and ultimately precision medicine. However, health IT, especially the EHR, are not able to integrate and interpret this data, ACMG said. In order to integrate genomic information into EHRs, amplifying patient autonomy, access, genetic literacy, privacy and protection, transferability of data, and assigning a data set must occur. “The electronic health record serves as a powerful interactive tool in improving the healthcare of patients …
