What Doctors Should Know About the Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is ushering in major changes to the health care sector in 2014, when most of its provisions will come into effect. There are ...
Health Care Providers and Compliance with the ADA
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines disability “as a mental or physical impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” The act provides protection for individuals with ...
Physician Quality Reporting System Under the Affordable Care Act
According to the American Medical Association, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has developed several quality initiatives that provide information on the quality of health care across a ...
Protecting Patients’ Medical Records
Health care professionals can harness technology in incredible ways to improve patient care. Cloud-based services, for example, enable doctors to analyze thousands of patients’ records to make better treatment decisions ...
Providers Must Prepare as ICD-10 Deadline Approaches
After several delays in the deadline for transitioning to the ICD-10 medical coding system, industry observers seem confident that the current October 1, 2014, deadline will stand. That means all ...
HIPAA May Be Modified for Gun Safety
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced in January a proposed modification to the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) Privacy Rule that would allow certain ...
The Perils of Copy and Paste
Electronic health records (EHR) systems can be complex and costly, challenging to learn and difficult to navigate. And yet, one of the simplest aspects of using EHR can get you ...
Feds Crack Down on Inflated Admissions, Tests
When the business news pages start talking about medicine, you are probably not going to hear about the latest breakthroughs in treatments or research. These days, what you most likely ...
Ruling Gives Providers Standing Under ERISA
You may describe yourself as a doctor, a chiropractor, a surgeon or any other title conferred by your profession — but if you provide services to participants in a private ...
What to Expect at an Administrative Hearing
Health care providers are accustomed to helping those in need, but when they receive a complaint letter from the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners, they become the ones ...
Compliance Trouble Spots for Health Care Providers
The major regulatory changes scheduled to take effect during the next few years will create increased compliance challenges for health care providers. As such, it’s more important than ever that ...
Reimbursement and the Affordable Care Act
For years, getting paid by Medicare and Medicaid wasn’t very complicated. After health care providers performed a service, they billed for it and got paid. But now that “fee for ...
Avoiding Health Care Compliance Violations
Health care providers face a heavy burden in staying current on the countless federal laws and regulations with which they must comply. For business entities, this burden can be especially ...
Affordable Care Act Makes Important Changes to the Stark Law
The Stark Law is a federal health care statute that limits physician referrals. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has made some important changes to the Stark Law that medical providers ...
HIPAA Privacy Rules for Covered Entities and Business Associates
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is intended to protect the privacy of patients’ health information. But navigating HIPAA can be confusing because it is often difficult to ...