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About one-quarter of healthcare respondents reported that their organization has experienced a security breach in the past year, according to new survey results from the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS) in Chicago.
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Based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) model, the Partnership for Patients is a recently announced, public-private partnership aimed at reducing injuries and complications by 40% and hospital readmissions by 20% over three years.
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The access reports proposed by the Office for Civil Rights' proposed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) accounting of disclosures rule could aid a plaintiff's attorney in filing a malpractice case, but they also could result in abandoning the case, says one plaintiff's attorney.
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When you've made a serious mistake, sometimes it is best to step forward and confess before the government regulators find out on their own. The federal Stark Law, governing physician self-referral, provides a mechanism for voluntary disclosing a violation, but using that option requires a carefully crafted game plan.
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So far, 93 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against a hospital and alleged sexual abuse by one of the hospital's endocrinologists. The doctor, the hospital's chief of endocrinology from the 1970s to the early 1990s, was accused of taking sexually explicit photos and recording videos of minors who were taking part in an alleged growth study the physician was conducting at the hospital.
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John B. Garver III, JD, and Jennifer Csik Hutchens, JD, attorneys in the Charlotte, NC, office of the law firm Robinson Brandshaw, offer these tips for healthcare risk managers deciding whether to use the Stark Voluntary Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol (SRDP), and if so, how to then prepare a SRDP submission.
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As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule on implementation of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) for accountable care organizations (ACOs), others released their notices regarding legal issues related to ACOs.
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The Office of Inspector General (OIG) at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has issued its Work Plan for 2012, indicating what areas will be of most interest for investigations and enforcement action. Much of the work plan involves a greater focus on the new issues raised by the changes introduced by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)
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Four reports issued by the AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement, a subsidiary of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), offer insights into some of the most common outpatient procedures, including cataract surgery, colonoscopy, low back injection, and knee arthroscopy. Highlights of the studies include:
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By every standard, outpatient surgery is growing. The recession took a bite out of it, with many patients delaying elective surgery until they obtained new positions and health insurance. However, by and large, most facilities are seeing resurgence in cases again in the hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs) and freestanding centers.
