On April 26, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a final rule to amend its Health Breach Notification Rule (HBN Rule). The HBN Rule works as a complement and counterpart to the breach notification requirements...more
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a final rule intended to implement a 2020 modification to the federal substance use disorder (SUD) privacy statute. The final rule more closely aligns the...more
On June 27, 2023, the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) released its final rule (“Final Rule”) implementing penalties for information blocking....more
Florida has a new law as of July 1, 2023 relating to the storage of certain health records. The newly enacted Florida Statutes section 408.051 creates the “Florida Electronic Health Records Exchange Act.” The Act states in...more
Healthcare in the United States is at a crossroads, with technology, new market “disrupters,” and seemingly intractable problems converging. At least that was the central theme we observed at the annual meeting of the...more
On July 9, 2018, Cass Regional Medical Center (CRMC) in Harrisonville, Missouri was hit with a ransomware attack that led to a complete shutdown of its electronic health record (EHR) and the diversion of trauma and stroke...more
After briefly considering a reversal of its prohibition on texting orders, The Joint Commission (TJC), in consultation with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced last month that its ban would continue...more
MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015) is bi-partisan legislation that was enacted to change Medicare reimbursement from being based on the current system of volume of services provided to...more
Many observers view the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) as a game changer for the delivery and payment of health care services. On Oct. 14, 2016 the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services...more
On the heels of the release of its final rule implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its 2017 list of Advanced Alternative Payment...more
On Oct. 14, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule with comment period implementing the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The nearly 2,400 pages of...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Oct. 14, 2016, released the highly anticipated Final Rule implementing the Medicare physician payment reforms enacted as part of the Medicare Access and CHIP...more
After receiving roughly 4,000 comments to its proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on October 14, 2016 released its final rule for implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act...more
Last year President Obama signed into law the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 ("MACRA"). MACRA implemented significant changes in how Medicare reimburses doctors. In particular, MACRA (i) ended the...more
Healthcare providers excel at providing care to their patients, not designing IT strategies. Even so, with the trend toward value-based payments increasing, more healthcare providers have turned to electronic health records...more
Significant changes to the Medicare payment system are underway. The Medicare Access & CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) is set to take effect January 1, 2017. MACRA represents a deliberate departure by the...more
Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule (Final Rule) modifying the Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long Term Acute Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective...more
On October 16, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule (Final Rule) that streamlines Stage 2 and finalizes Stage 3 of the Medicare and Medicaid electronichealth record (EHR) Incentive...more
For health care professionals who began accepting Meaningful Use incentive money at the outset of availability under the Medicare option in 2011, the year 2015 is an important year. If the provider has met all core...more
On September 28, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a Request for Information (RFI) seeking stakeholder comments related to innovative physician payment models required by the Medicare Access...more
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is changing reimbursement methodologies for healthcare providers from a fee-for-service model to a value-based model. Healthcare providers are responding to the changing...more
With health care breaches constantly on the rise, increasing access to electronic health records (EHRs) from mobile devices, and more prevalent “shadow” cloud use, health care organizations are getting a bit of help from the...more
CMS Reopens Attestation Period For First-Time Hospitals Until August – CMS recently announced that eligible hospitals participating in the Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Program for the first time in 2015 may...more
This is the fourth and final post in our series on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). Pub.L. No. 114-10. We’ve previously covered the repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) in our April 20th post,...more
On November 26, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) published a thirty-two page document titled “Guidance Regarding Methods for De-identification of Protected Health Information...more