The Compliance Insider Blog | Healthcare Compliance Pros - Page 71

HIPAA Audits Need Documentation

Keeping risk assessment documentation and other compliance evidence in a centralized repository is a good way to prepare for any HIPAA audit or investigation. Office for Civil Rights (OCR) officials have said...

The Sunshine Act: An Overview

The following is a brief overview of the Sunshine Act and how it affects covered entities: As part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the Sunshine Act was implemented in order to provide important ownership...

Veteran's Administration Privacy Breaches

Veteran's Administration (VA) employees or contractors are responsible for 14,215 HIPAA privacy violations at 167 facilities from 2010 to May 31, 2013.The violations affected at least 101,018 veterans and 551 VA...

Proposed New Disclosure Rule

At an online hearing Sept. 30, federal advisers heard concerns from healthcare providers, electronic health records system vendors and others about the cost and impracticality of a proposal to require giving patients...

Idle CDC Worries Experts about the Spread of Flu

The fall flu season in the U.S. is unfolding largely unobserved. TheCDC's labs and surveillance programs are idle, thanks to the government shutdown, and outside experts are worried that essential data is being lost....

HIPAA and the Government Shutdown

At the heart of the federal budget stalemate in Washington is the effort to pull the plug on Obamacare. The resulting partial government shutdown is derailing other important healthcare efforts that not only impact...

Government Shutdown Affecting OSHA

The recent shutdown of the federal government due to legislative battles in the U.S. Congress has led many to wonder about how various agencies will be affected. As a division of the Department of Labor, the...

More HIPAA Audits for 2014

Federal regulators are planning for a permanentHIPAAaudit program that will begin next year. But the audits will be narrower in scope than the 115 in the pilot program during 2012, helping pave the way for a higher...

Healthcare Infections Cost $10 billion a Year

A recent study from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that the five most common healthcare related infections costs the U.S. healthcare system almost $10 billion...

At-Will Employment and "For Cause" Statements

It may seem like a good idea to say you will terminate employees only "for cause," particularly if you want to be perceived as acting fairly towards your workers. But, if you do, you could be limiting your ability to...