by Gary Pritts | Jun 22, 2018 | DD Boards
A Roane County, Tennessee, EMS responder posted on her Facebook page, “well, we had a first…We worked a code in a chicken coop! Knee deep in chicken droppings.” according to HealthITSecurity.com. Lessons from this incident can be useful for County DD Boards. The EMS...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 14, 2018 | Business Associates & Others, General News, Health Information Technology, HIPAA, Large Providers, Physician Practices, Threat Intelligence
“Healthcare records contain some of the most detailed personal information available, and healthcare organizations are not doing enough to protect this information.”[1] Cyber-attacks on healthcare providers increased from 2016 to 2017 and are expected to increase...
by Gary Pritts | Jun 7, 2018 | General News, Threat Intelligence
Bottom Line Up Front: VPNFilter malware has infected over 500,000 consumer-grade routers and network-attached storage devices with malware that can intercept your internet traffic, steal passwords, pass other malware onto your network, and connect your devices to...
by Gary Pritts | May 23, 2018 | CMS Quality Payment Programs, General News
The initial year for MIPS, 2017, was relatively easy for providers, many of whom were able to achieve a perfect final score of 100. Naturally, providers chose measures that were relatively easy to perform well on, that is, they picked the “low hanging...
by Gary Pritts | May 23, 2018 | CMS Quality Payment Programs, General News
New for the Merit-Based Improvement Payment System (MIPS) in 2018 is the opportunity for small practices (15 or fewer eligible professionals) to claim a “significant hardship exception” for the Promoting Interoperability (formerly Advancing Care Information)...
by Gary Pritts | May 23, 2018 | CMS Quality Payment Programs, General News
Today CMS announced that it is renaming multiple EHR incentive programs to “Promoting Interoperability” (PI). This name change affects multiple programs: The hospital Medicare and Medicaid “Meaningful Use” programs, The physician Medicaid “Meaningful Use” programs,...
by Eagle Editor | May 18, 2018 | Health Information Technology, HIPAA, HIPAA Policy Templates
Business associates in healthcare are seeing HIPAA breach fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’ve found that often the Business Associates of our clients in healthcare — physician’s practices, hospitals, insurance companies and even government...
by Gary Pritts | Apr 6, 2018 | HIPAA, HIPAA Policy Templates
Most County Boards know that 3rd party providers – for example, group homes, ICFs, Day Service providers – are not HIPAA Business Associates. The changes in the 2013 HIPAA Omnibus rule has made it clear that other “health care providers” are not HIPAA...
by Gary Pritts | Apr 3, 2018 | DD Boards
An employee and a supervisor of Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) were fired in February for sending emails containing PHI of about 11,000 individuals, according to HealthDataManagement. The employees intended to send lists of case assignments...
by Gary Pritts | Mar 19, 2018 | DD Boards, General News, HIPAA
A key reason for risk analysis failure during an audit by the HHS Office for Civil Rights is mistaking a technical or non-technical evaluation for a risk analysis. That is the key takeaway from a recent presentation by Ilana Peters, former Acting Deputy Director of...
