News+PR
The latest from industry trends and happening in the compliance.
Whistleblower Regulations Promote Ethics and Compliance in the Workplace
Both OSHA and OIG have regulatory standards aimed at protecting workers from retaliation from whistleblower complaints. Employers with a clear whistleblowing policy can create a work culture where wrongdoing can be addressed quickly, in many cases before there is any...
Biden-Harris Administration Vaccine Announcement
To increase protection for both healthcare staff and patients against COVID-19 and the Delta variant, the Biden-Harris Administration has announced that staff working in all Medicare- and Medicaid-certified facilities are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19. A...
Payer Participation Contracts: Do you know what you are signing?
When it comes to payer contracting, there are some key provisions that you must take seriously. In the past, there were only a few contract elements that were of interest to the provider or practice leadership: fee schedule with carve outs, timely payment of claims,...
Lessons We’ve Learned from Site Visits
A Cause for Renewed OSHA Diligence
New York Issues HERO Act Prevention Standards and Penalties
NY State employers must comply with new regulations to prevent the spread of airborne infectious disease in the workplace
OSHA Issues Emergency Temporary Standard for Healthcare
It has been 38 years since OSHA has issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), but the agency has determined that COVID-19 presents such a serious risk to healthcare workers that they have issued an ETS for Healthcare. Under this ETS, employers are required to help...
Workplace Violence in Healthcare – Tips on handling an Agitated Patient
Workplace violence has been at the forefront of news reports lately and violence against healthcare workers has risen over the past several years. It’s a topic that is sometimes overlooked and can only be eradicated through conversation, education, and solid safety...
Releasing Patient Health Information: Release Management Practices
The exchange or release of health information is essential to the provision of high quality and cost-effective health care. The information released should be within the scope of the request, complete based on the nature of the request and submitted timely. This...
The Dangers of Undercoding
The innumerable horror stories related to payer audits have given rise to a new trend of undercoding, by intent! Many providers would rather be safe than sorry, all in the name of keeping their good names off the radar. However, undercoding can backfire, resulting in...
The Importance of Respirator Fit Testing
The importance of a well-fitting mask has been especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have seen an increase in formal fit test evaluations over the past year due to the needs of the current crisis. Now that PPE is readily available and overall emergency...
COVID Shines a Light on Employee Safety
Historically, OSHA has been stable in their physician regulations, but the COVID era altered that equation. OSHA had been relatively quiet through the pandemic, letting the CDC do most of the heavy lifting, but since practices opened back up in May 2020 there has been...
Remote Work
What should be done if a remote worker becomes sick with COVID-19 and is required to be quarantined?
COVID-19 Billing Guide
There are 11 new CPT codes for COVID-19 vaccines. Each vaccine has a specific vaccine administration code. The appropriate administration code is chosen based on the type of vaccine and which dose in the schedule (first or second dose) the patient receives. CPT Code...
Emergency Operations Plans – Your Best Defense
An emergency operations plan (EOP) is your best defense against a disaster, lawsuit, and repetitional damage. In 2017, CMS outlined to17 healthcare entities that to participate in CMS, they must have a plan. Though physician practices are not part of the 17, it is...
21st Century Cures Act and CMS Interoperability & Patient Access
The 21st Century Cures Act ("Cures Act") was approved by Congress in 2016 with the intent to provide electronic access, exchange, and use of health information across all different types of health care entities. On May 1, 2020, the Cures Act's final rule became...
The Public Health Emergency (PHE) Will Fade Away
On the day that President Biden was sworn into office, the public health emergency (PHE) was set to expire, but the Department of Health & Human Services extended the emergency declaration for another 90 days, to April 20, 2021. This represents the fourth time...
First Proposed HIPAA Privacy Rules Changes in 8 Years
In a response to the healthcare community’s desire to lessen the administrative burden on HIPAA covered entities, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a request of information (RFI) in December of 2018. Two years later, after this RFI comment period closed, the OCR...
Welcome to HCN ELEMENTS, our publication of information and insights on the everchanging regulatory compliance landscape.
ELEMENTS may seem like an unusual name for a newsletter but for us, the word is pretty much of a North Star. We use the “7 Elements of Compliance “to guide everything we do. A little history by way of explanation. In the mid 1990’s the CDC, OSHA and other government...