HHS

When a breach occurs, offices are required to notify the patients whose information may have been compromised in the breach. This is known as the Breach Notification Rule.

The public health emergency is extended until April 16, 2022.

Based upon an article that is posted within The American Institute of Healthcare Compliance website, it is important to note that the OIG is Auditing for Abusive Dermatology Claims. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is auditing dermatologists for billing an E/M service on the same date of service that a minor surgical procedure (ie. postoperative global period of 0 or 10 days) is performed. Medicare only covers Evaluation & Management (E/M) services on the same day as a minor procedure if a physician/surgeon performs a significant and separately identifiable E/M service that is unrelated to the decision to perform the minor surgical procedure. In order to bypass the CCI edits or the Correct Coding Initiative edits and bill for the E/M service and the minor surgical procedure/CPT code on the same date of service, the 25 modifier needs to be appended to the E/M service.

When you have a Business Associate Agreement in place you always can send a letter terminating the relationship. When you send that letter, you should instruct the Business Associate to delete all your patient data, and if that is not feasible that hey are responsible to protect that data under the HIPAA regulations. It is always best to have an attorney review the letter prior to sending it.

Have you encrypted your laptops? No? You should probably start thinking about getting those devices encrypted.