HIPAA, Coding & Compliance News
HIPAA violations for personal gain carry hefty penalties.
"The law provides for a maximum total sentence of 80 years in prison, a fine of $4,730,000, or both," states the release. For more details, read the release at www.justice.gov/usao/paw/pr/2010_september/2010_09_15_01.html.
Several employees at a Georgia hospital recently got the boot for texting and posting a patient's X-ray on FaceBook.
An article in Savannah Morning News and savvanahnow. com reports that the paper "received a copy of two images of the X-ray, one of which included the patient's first name and middle initial." The hospital acknowledged that the images are of the same patient, but strongly disavowed that the picture on FaceBook had any information that could have identified the patient, the newspaper reports. Read the full article at http://savannahnow.com/latest-news/2010-12-16/3-fired-6-punishedst-josephscandler-x-ray-leak-investigations.Welcome a partial code freeze as you prepare for ICD-10.
If you've been wondering how you can stay up to date on the annual changes to the ICD-9 code set while simultaneously preparing for the 2013 transition to ICD-10, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has good news for you. The ICD-9-CM Coordination & Maintenance (C&M) Committee has decided to implement a partial freeze for both ICD-9-CM codes and ICD-10-CM codes prior to the switch.CMS received "considerable interest ... in dramatically reducing the number of annual updates to both coding systems" as ICD-10 implementation ramps up. Reducing the volume of code updates should give "vendors, providers, system maintainers, payers, and educators a better opportunity to prepare for the implementation of ICD-10."
"While the healthcare industry is currently used to handling annual code set modifications, preparation for a transition to an entirely new code set is a much larger and more complex endeavor; incorporating additional code set modifications during the final stages of ICD-10-CM/PCS implementation preparation only adds further cost and complexity," the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) said in an opinion supporting the freeze.
The partial freeze will be implemented as follows:
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The last regular annual update to both ICD-9 and ICD-10 code sets will be made on Oct. 1, 2011.
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On October 1, 2012, there will be only limited code updates to both ICD-9-CM and ICD-10 code sets to capture new technology and new diseases.
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On Oct. 1, 2013, there will be only limited code updates to ICD-10 code sets to capture new technologies and diagnoses. There will be no updates to ICD-9-CM on Oct. 1, 2013, as the system will no longer be a HIPAA standard.
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On Oct. 1, 2014, regular updates to ICD-10 will begin.
The ICD-9 Coordination & Maintenance Committee will continue to meet twice a year during the freeze. And the public will have the opportunity to comment on whether or not new diagnosis and procedure codes should be created based on the need to capture new technologies or diseases. Any code requests that do not meet the criteria for inclusion during the freeze will be considered for implementation in ICD-10 once the partial freeze is ended -- on or after Oct. 1, 2014.
Can a nursing facility maintain Minimum Data Sets electronically if it doesn't use electronic signatures?
Facilities have to maintain 15 months' worth of MDSs, noted CMS' Christina Stillwell-Deaner during a Nov. 9 agencysponsored webinar. And even if your facility hasn't gone entirely electronic with its records, you can still maintain MDSs in an electronic format, she said.The catch:
If the facility doesn't have electronic signatures, you have to print out and sign all of the signature pages for an MDS assessment and keep them in the resident's medical record, Stillwell-Deaner reminded listeners. You can maintain the rest of the assessment data electronically but it has to be "readily accessible and available for surveyors" and anyone providing care to the resident who needs the MDS information. "Facilities should have policies in place for how that's handled."Specifically:
The MDS 3.0 RAI User's Manual notes that when facilities maintain the MDS electronically without using electronic signatures, they "must maintain, at a minimum, hard copies of signed and dated CAA(s) completion (Items V0200BC), correction completion (Items X1100A-E), and assessment completion (Items Z0400-Z0500) data that is residentidentifiable in the resident's active clinical record."