December, 2023

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HIPAA Enforcement is Changing. Providers Must Too.

HIT Consultant

Cam Roberson, VP at Beachhead Solutions Healthcare delivery organizations and those working with them that are still in business are either well aware of their duties under HIPAA, work with managed service providers that understand the law well, or…are lucky to have made it this far. Even for organizations that have steered clear of both cyberattacks and regulatory fines, vigilance is essential to maintaining a clean bill of (cybersecurity) health.

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New HIPAA Security Rule and Enforcement Coming in 2024

Healthcare IT Today

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it will update the HIPAA Security Rule in 2024 and will ask Congress for new laws and resources to increase civil money penalties for HIPAA violations, increase HIPAA enforcement, and conduct proactive audits. HHS released a new Healthcare Sector Cybersecurity strategy paper which cited a 93% increase in large breaches from 2018 – 2022 and a 278% increase in large breaches caused by ransomware.

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ChristianaCare pays $47M to resolve former compliance officer's kickback allegations

Fierce Healthcare

Wilmington, Delaware-based ChristianaCare has agreed to a $47.1 million settlement resolving illegal kickback allegations flagged by its former chief compliance officer, Ronald Sherman. | The agreement is the largest False Claims Act settlement in Delaware's history and paves the way for future cases against hospitals that provide private physician groups with free services from their employees, legal counsel said.

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How AI can improve patient experience and patient engagement

Healthcare It News

Hospitals and health systems, especially larger ones, are using AI in myriad new ways – including leveraging it for improved patient experience, and for better patient engagement with the goal of reducing health inequities. Tom Kiseau, digital leader and chief innovation officer at the Chartis Group, hosts a regular series of AI roundtables alongside colleagues and experts from other practices in the industry.

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Optimizing Medical Waste Management: A Guide to Best Practices

Feeling overwhelmed by medical waste regulations? This comprehensive guide unravels the complexities of medical waste disposal, ensuring you stay compliant and prioritize safety. Inside you'll find: Clear categorization: Learn to precisely classify medical waste for proper handling and disposal. Labeling & Storage: Discover best practices for clear labeling and secure storage of medical waste.

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Biden administration urges 9 states to curb high child Medicaid, CHIP disenrollments

Healthcare Dive

Nine states account for about 60% of the decline in children’s Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment from March through September, according to data from the CMS.

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Can Rights Make Any Difference for Access to Health? Insights from a Scoping Review on Constitutional Rights for the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All

Bill of Health

By Luciano Bottini Filho, Camila Gianella Malca, and Alicia Ely Yamin The intersection of health financing and the right to health is a common concern in public health advocacy. However, it is challenging to isolate the mechanisms that connect individuals’ rights with increased public investment. As scholars, we grapple with the question of what happens once the right to health is constitutionalized and whether it has a transformative effect on the economy, government funding, and the mate

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More Trending

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Where AI will impact healthcare in 2024

Mobi Health News

Digital health stakeholders said that AI will be used next year to help ease administrative tasks for providers, improve clinical trial participation and increase transparency in healthcare.

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Bipartisan reps introduce bill canceling 2024's 3.4% Medicare pay cut to physicians

Fierce Healthcare

A bipartisan group of representatives has introduced a bill into the House that would undo a 2024 physician pay cut finalized last month by the Biden administration. | Provider groups have argued that the scheduled 3.4% cut would come as medical practice costs are set to rise 4.6%, potentially threatening Medicare patients' access to care. The bipartisan bill was quickly applauded by the AMA.

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Where AI innovation has taken one EHR vendor in 2023

Healthcare It News

Healthcare IT News sat down with Paul Brient , chief product officer of athenahealth, to gain his insights into how artificial intelligence can improve patient experiences and healthcare delivery, simplify healthcare interactions, and make healthcare more accessible, as well as hear how the electronic health record vendor is using AI today. He said that new AI-driven features in athenaOne are already helping to improve healthcare efficiency and address clinician burnout by cutting administrative

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UnitedHealth, OptumRx sued by independent pharmacy over ‘unconscionable’ fees

Healthcare Dive

Osterhaus Pharmacy in Iowa — which is also suing CVS Caremark — is taking issue with pharmacy benefit managers’ use of performance-based fees that it says are contributing to independent pharmacy closures.

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HIPAA Compliance: Can Your Organization Avoid Costly Government Penalties and Fines?

Colington Consulting was established in 2013 and helps organizations achieve HIPAA compliance and ensures clients stay current with the latest enforcement trends. We provide a full range of HIPAA compliance services and consulting. What separates us from our competitors is our knowledge of HIPAA compliance regulations and their application to each of our client’s particular scenarios and requirements.

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Combatting Elder Abuse in Long-Term Care: Challenges and Opportunities of Electronic Monitoring

Bill of Health

By Laura C. Hoffman The aging population is growing at an extraordinary rate in the U.S. By 2040, it is anticipated that the U.S. aging population (defined as those ages 65 and older) will double, totaling 80 million. Given this growth, preventing elder abuse must be at the forefront of policymaking. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recognized elder abuse as a “serious” problem that is commonly occurring, yet significantly underreported, in the U.S.

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Sensitive Data Requires Great Responsibility: The Importance of ‘Privacy and Security by Design’ in Healthcare

HIT Consultant

Chris Bowen, founder and CISO at ClearDATA In healthcare, sensitive data comes with great responsibility. For companies entrusted with managing and protecting patients’ personal information, ensuring the privacy of that data must be the highest priority. These companies are called to act as vigilant guardians, especially when you consider that secure and accurate data can literally save lives.

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Q&A: Google's chief clinical officer on AI regulation in healthcare

Mobi Health News

Dr. Michael Howell, chief clinical officer at Google, discusses Med-PaLM's evolution in 2023 and recommendations for regulators developing rules for AI use in healthcare.

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2024 Outlook: Despite hurdles, stakeholders bullish on VR in behavioral health

Fierce Healthcare

Though often associated with gaming, virtual reality (VR) is a technology rapidly evolving in healthcare. | VR therapy is not a new concept, though it wasn’t until the last few years that the field became prominent. And as technology has improved and gotten more intuitive to use, it has also become less expensive.

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The Big Payoff of Application Analytics

Outdated or absent analytics won’t cut it in today’s data-driven applications – not for your end users, your development team, or your business. That’s what drove the five companies in this e-book to change their approach to analytics. Download this e-book to learn about the unique problems each company faced and how they achieved huge returns beyond expectation by embedding analytics into applications.

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Will 2024 See True Value-Based Care Transformation?

HealthIT Answers

Our annual predictions for 2024 continues with Value-Based Care in 2024. Throughout the next few weeks we will be asking the industry experts what they think we will see in 2024. Check back as we cover AI, digital health, interoperability, privacy, security, access, and equality. The post Will 2024 See True Value-Based Care Transformation? appeared first on Health IT Answers.

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HHS’ new cyber framework for hospitals includes stricter requirements, potential penalties

Healthcare Dive

The agency’s plans include working with Congress to receive funding to support hospitals’ security infrastructures as the sector faces the growing threat of cyberattacks.

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Data Pseudonymization and POPIA

Bill of Health

By Donrich Thaldar Just as Zeus, the King of the Gods in Greek mythology, assumed various forms to conceal his true identity, so does modern data often undergo transformations to mask its origins. Zeus could become a swan, a bull, or even golden rain to achieve his purposes — all while maintaining his essence. Similarly, pseudonymization techniques aim to alter data enough to protect individual privacy without losing the core information necessary for research or analysis.

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Redefining Chronic Kidney Disease Management with Remote Patient Monitoring

HIT Consultant

Lucienne Marie Ide, M.D., PH.D., Founder & CEO of Rimidi Chronic kidney disease may be one of the biggest killers of American adults, but individuals affected may not even know it. Today, more than 37 million people – 15% of the population – have chronic kidney disease, which is the ninth leading cause of death. But, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 90% of these individuals are unaware they have this disease.

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Everything You Wanted to Know About FACIS, but Didn’t Know to Ask

Speaker: Amy Anderson

FACIS® helps organizations mitigate patient and organizational risk. Maintaining compliance and safeguarding against fraud and abuse in today’s changing healthcare landscape can be challenging. Most healthcare organizations screen and monitor providers against the OIG but that’s only ONE of FACIS®’ primary sources. FACIS® pulls data for every taxonomy from the lowest level employee to the highest level licensed professional.

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Study: Google reveals LLM that helps accurately diagnosis complex cases

Mobi Health News

The tech giant revealed it created an LLM optimized for diagnostic reasoning with the ability to generate a differential diagnosis or assist clinicians in coming to a diagnosis.

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Few health plans have dedicated Alzheimer’s and dementia care management strategy: survey

Fierce Healthcare

Health plans and value-based care organizations are ill-prepared to help patients with Alzheimer’s Disease or related dementia. | Only a small fraction of health plans and value-based care organizations have a fully developed care management model for its enrollees with dementia or Alzheimer's, a new survey shows.

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Optimizing the Patient Experience Throughout the Care Journey

HealthIT Answers

By Ryne Natzke - As the patient experience in healthcare evolves to mirror that of retail industries, it has become more essential for providers to provide patients with engaging and convenient tools throughout the care journey. For example, providers should take steps to ensure patients have clarity about every aspect of their care, including. The post Optimizing the Patient Experience Throughout the Care Journey appeared first on Health IT Answers.

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Healthcare executives look to implement generative AI next year, survey finds

Healthcare Dive

Though only a quarter of respondents said they’d already adopted the tools, 58% reported they were likely to do so within the next year, according to Klas Research.

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Ensure Continuous Patient Care: How to Avoid Disruptions Due to Ransomware

The industry has seen an increasing pace of ransomware, zero-day, and remote-code execution attacks. Learn how to defend against these against these attacks in this eBook.

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When the Law of Scientific Evidence Collides with Medical Practice

Bill of Health

By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer Approaches to resolving scientific evidentiary issues continue to diverge throughout the country. [1] A prominent recent example includes the rejection of the medical diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) to reflect disparate views in the scientific, medical, and legal communities. Under guise of making a scientific evidentiary ruling, a New Jersey court has just dismembered the medical diagnosis of SBS, with the judge disavowing the condition’s validity.

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EHR Data Holds Promise for Chronic Disease Surveillance, Study Reveals

HIT Consultant

What You Should Know: – As chronic disease rates rise across the U.S., researchers are exploring how electronic health records (EHRs) can be used to improve public health surveillance and intervention efforts. While 90% of healthcare providers in the U.S. utilize EHRs, sharing this data with public health departments is currently limited due to legal, political, and organizational barriers. – A new study from the Regenstrief Institute provides practical guidance for implementing gove

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Report: AI, value-based care are growing sectors in digital health but lack large-scale adoption

Mobi Health News

Rock Health's Digital Health at the Turn of 2024 report found retailers as providers and data interoperability are scaling innovations in the sector, with lasting trajectories.

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BCBS of Massachusetts faces backlash from docs over anesthesia coverage policy change

Fierce Healthcare

A new policy from Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts, starting Jan. | Some patients needing a colonoscopy in Massachusetts won't be covered for monitored anesthesia care, or MAC, starting Jan. 1. Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts is standing by the policy, which will save the insurer money but require the patient to remain awake for the operation.

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Generative AI for Contracts Is Here: New Tools to Accelerate Drafting and Editing

The emergence of generative AI is reshaping the landscape of contract management, enabling businesses to generate and negotiate legal agreements with greater ease and speed. In this on-demand webinar, Hal Marcus, VP of Product Marketing at Evisort discusses how Evisort's generative AI transforms contract creation and negotiation, empowering legal teams to streamline processes while reducing risk.

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HHS Finalizes Rule to Advance Health IT Interoperability and Algorithm Transparency

HealthIT Answers

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology finalized its Health Data, Technology, and Interoperability: Certification Program Updates, Algorithm Transparency, and Information Sharing (HTI-1) rule. The post HHS Finalizes Rule to Advance Health IT Interoperability and Algorithm Transparency appeared first on Health IT Answers.

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A Cigna-Humana merger could face a long regulatory delay. But it might get approved.

Healthcare Dive

As rumors swirl that the two major health insurers are inching toward a merger, experts say antitrust agencies have grounds to block a deal — but may not be successful.

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President Joe Biden, the AI Wizard

Bill of Health

By Bobby Stroup Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t magic , but there is value in telling a magical story to non-technical stakeholders to describe how we’ll govern this transformative technology. In fact, President Joe Biden himself could benefit by borrowing from an existing legend. Let’s pick a story that’s already popular and one where heroes successfully overcame a dangerous technology.

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Why hackers attacked a health system on Thanksgiving

Becker's Health IT

Cybercriminals attacked a major U.S. health system the week of Thanksgiving, disrupting hospitals and surgeries across multiple states. IT security chiefs share their takeaways from the incident.

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Best Practices for Sharing Protected Health Information (PHI)

In this ebook, you will learn about the 18 PHI indicators, the legal requirements and penalties surrounding PHI, and how your healthcare teams should securely exchange this data. Key takeaways from this ebook: Gain confidence in identifying PHI. Acquire practical implementation strategies for exchanging PHI within your organization. Emphasize the importance of using compliant communication tools within healthcare teams.