Physicians in recent years have had to contend with growing caseloads, decreased face-to-face time with patients, shrinking reimbursements, HIPAA demands, and other hassles. In a survey of 3,897 physicians, to which 2,556 (65.6%) responded, 45% of doctors reported high levels of fatigue, according to findings published recently in Mayo Clinic Proceedings (2015;90:194-201). Still, 71% expressed…
Practicing physicians spend much of their time dealing with things that have nothing to do with direct patient care, such as coding, filling out forms, dealing with insurance companies, managing staff and other administrative responsibilities, following provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and so on. These are realities of daily practice…
Providers need to take a close look at their individual practices, identify potential areas of risk, and put important safeguards in place.
Physicians are getting busier and busier as they take on bigger and bigger caseloads. This may increase the likelihood of medical errors. One area in which such errors could be made is in prescribing. A harried physician handwriting a prescription might scribble a drug order that is illegible to a pharmacist. Or he or she…
Health care providers are increasingly using mobile devices for patient care.
When a security breach occurs, these documents could make things easier during a government audit.
Federal requirements mandate only that the entire workforce in a practice be trained as ‘necessary and appropriate to their functions.’
A wide range of patient information is covered under HIPAA privacy statutes, which regulate how information is disclosed.
Confidential health information was sent to a patient’s employer by a physician, resulting in a HIPAA violation.
Compliance gurus bet there are at least a few things physicians are not doing to comply with HIPAA.
