Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

You're not off the hook if the breach is the vendor's fault. Making the electronic health record transition may cut costs and reduce errors, but you also are bound to face increased compliance risks -- and increased federal scrutiny. Wake-up call: You are accountable for compliance even if a third party installs and maintains your system. Physicians will still be responsible for ensuring the same privacy protections as if they did have their own IT dept, points out Jim Sheldon-Dean, founder and director of compliance services at Lewis Creek Systems in Vermont. What's more: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) just intensified HIPAA requirements, and Congress has allocated more HIPAA security compliance enforcement dollars to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), points out Wayne J. Miller, a healthcare attorney with the Compliance Law Group in Los Angeles. Use this breakdown [...]