Practice Management
Urgent message: Using social media platforms helps your community get to know your urgent care center. But be sure that you protect your patients’ privacy when doing so. Introduction Social media has great utility for urgent care centers, providing invaluable opportunities to connect with the local community and offering a host of educational tools for providers and patients. The explosion of myriad social media platforms, however, has created a variety of new channels for exposure …
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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act—better (if not more affectionately) known as HIPAA—was signed into effect in 1996, around the time that the World Wide Web was viewed as the wild frontier. In 2016, the internet is now The Establishment, every citizen of the United States has access to health insurance, and electronic data drive everything from who’s “trending” on Instagram to local, regional, and national expectations of the coming flu season. Even firewalls …
Read MoreUrgent message: Urgent care centers must dispose of fully depreciated office equipment such as computers, copiers, fax machines, and telephones containing protected health information in a manner that complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. How this column helps you: gives you guidelines for protecting your patients’ privacy. Introduction Since 2009, 42 million patients have been affected by privacy breaches entailing their protected health information (PHI).1 Many of these breaches stem from the …
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Electronic health records have fostered easier access to vital information—clearly a benefit to providers and patients—but they’ve also been the font of data breaches involving the records of nearly 33 million individuals since 2009. Part of the problem lies with dishonest or inept contractors (or “business associates”) that may not have the expertise to construct proper security measures. Now those business associates are going to be targeted for HIPAA audits by the Department of Health …
Read MoreJohn Shufeldt, MD, JD, MBA, FACEP You are working in an urgent care center when a mother shows up with her 18-year-old daughter, who is “mildly developmentally delayed,” per her mom. The daughter turned 18 yesterday and the mother is concerned that she may have gotten a little “too wild” while celebrating her birthday at a friend’s house and she would like her tested for drugs and STDs. The daughter appears to understand what is …
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Urgent message: This article discusses potential penalties for violations of HIPAA and key steps urgent care centers should take in order to avoid such penalties. BART WALKER and MEGGAN BUSHEE Complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) can be a daunting challenge for smaller providers. As the urgent care industry grows, its providers will become much more visible targets for scrutiny by the federal government with respect to HIPAA compliance. In addition, …
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Urgent message: The escalating pressure on the industry to decrease health care costs has resulted in an increase in audit activity from government and private payors for everything from billing and coding to HIPAA and kickbacks. Therefore, it’s more important than ever for urgent care centers to build a culture of compliance. DAMARIS L. MEDINA The health care industry is in the throes of a dynamic regulatory enforcement climate. Federal and state regulators and third-party …
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