Law & Malpractice

Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota are putting extra pressure on physicians to adopt EHRs. Now it's time to see if other states follow.

The federal government has estimated that some 50,000 additional health IT workers will be needed in the next five years to help practices and hospitals digitize healthcare. So where will they come from?

Perhaps the issue of physicians using voice recognition software can best be portrayed by the location of the microphones of Dr. J. Scott Litton, Jr., and Dr. Simeon Schwartz.

A physician member of the House of Representatives thinks that early adopters of EHRs should get incentive payments if their systems meet the government’s “meaningful use” criteria, but aren’t yet certified.

Straight from the HIPAA regulation, here is an outline to follow as you create your Notice of Privacy Practices.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act requires authorization from patients for the release of protected health information for uses other than treatment, payment or health care operations. Here's a sample form for this purpose. Provided by Rachel Glitz, Paul Smith, and Becky Williams of Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP.

Use this form to document internal review of and response to complaints concerning compliance with human resource, HIPAA, Medicare billing or other ethical and legal guidelines.

Ask staff to sign this agreement, showing that they understand the need to protect patient confidentiality.

This document includes other necessary forms related to the Red Flags Rule, including an identity theft affidavit. Don’t forget to replace “Our Medical Group” with your practice name.

Is your practice “Red Flags” ready? Here are several forms to help you develop a policy to comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s Red Flags Rule, which requires creditors to implement programs to prevent and detect identity theft. Here you’ll find a document with a policy, board resolution, and contract addendum. Just replace “Our Medical Group” with the name of your practice, and you’re on your way.

In this podcast, Justin Barnes, of the EHR Association and Greenway Medical Technologies, explains CMS’ final rule for meaningful use criteria for EHR incentives.

Are CMS’ final rule for EHR meaningful use too weak to improve patient care, or too strict for providers to achieve?

Confused about EHR certification? You’re not alone. With all the talk lately about the meaningful use criteria for achieving federal funds, many providers aren’t sure what it all means and where certification fits in there.

We’re happy to bring you the following primer on the just-released final rules on how to demonstrate “meaningful use” of an EHR for the purposes of receiving federal stimulus dollars. This backgrounder is a modified excerpt from Physicians Practice’s upcoming September 2010 cover story on our annual technology survey, authored by Bob Redling, and also contains updated information from Physicians Practice editors.

Unfortunately, physicians are not immune to the growing threat of identity theft and data breaches. Check out our guide to keeping your personal information secure.

In this podcast, Justin Barnes, of the EHR Association and Greenway Medical Technologies, explains CMS’ final rule for meaningful use criteria for EHR incentives.

So CMS listened to your comments and concerns and relaxed the EHR meaningful use requirements. But are some choice and a little flexibility enough to open the flood gates for implementation? Maybe not entirely, but it may encourage some procrastinators to get there more quickly.

Are networking sites like Facebook and Twitter privacy problems in need of a solution, opportunities to build community around your practice, or both? We help you navigate this brave new world of Web networking.

CMS has relaxed the requirements and given providers some choice in how they achieve meaningful use of EHRs. The highly-anticipated final rule released today, which outlining the criteria for receiving federal incentive funding, includes several changes from the initial proposal.

A new study finds that e-mailing chronic disease patients could improve outcomes. But only about a third of docs e-mail patients, a trend that could shift as more practices adopt secure messaging and patient portals.

Medicare’s shared savings approach grew out of its Physician Group Practice (PGP) demonstration. The results of the pilot for first three years were fairly impressive.

This week, the ONC will make applications available for organizations that want to become EHR certifying bodies.

Electronic communication is omnipresent. Not only is it instantaneous, but in many ways it is becoming the standard of care. No longer does a practice need to create mountains of paperwork.

How much time should you spend with your patients? This is an important question, but difficult to answer.

Meeting meaningful-use requirements for EHRs will demand interoperability between data systems. Do you have a strategy for connecting online with pharmacies, labs, other physicians, and patients? Here’s our primer for achieving connectivity and meaningful use.