House Bill Says 23 Years Isn’t Long Enough for Transition to ICD-10
All across the country hospitals have been bracing for the scheduled Oct. 1, 2015, transition from ICD-9 coding to ICD-10. It had been scheduled for Oct. 1, 2014, but the Protecting Access to Medicare...
View ArticleInsurer Escapes Antitrust Suit, But Hospital Must Continue the Fight
A large regional health insurer extricated itself from an antitrust suit, leaving the dominant local hospital to square off alone versus an ambulatory surgical center (ASC). The U.S. District Court for...
View ArticleWhen Is a Hospital Not a Hospital?
When is a hospital not a hospital? The Fifth Circuit provided an answer in a July 29 decision in favor of a nurse seeking insurance coverage for medical treatment at a residential treatment facility....
View ArticleOffice for Civil Rights Selects Vendor for Next Round of HIPAA Audits – Five...
The Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) has selected Ashburn, Virginia-based FCi Federal to conduct the next round of HIPAA audits mandated by the HITECH Act. OCR views the audits as a compliance tool...
View ArticleThird Cir. Holds Hospitals May Sue Health Insurers Directly
Before September 11 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals had been out of step with its sister federal circuits when it came to the right of hospitals, physicians and other health providers to sue health...
View ArticleFitbit Agrees to Sign Business Associate Agreements and Take on HIPAA Compliance
Is your Fitbit data covered by HIPAA? It depends upon where you got it (kind of). If you go to the store and pick up a Fitbit on your own, the data it generates is governed by the user agreement that...
View ArticleHealth Facilities May Be Insuring Doctors without Knowing It
A September 29 ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court effectively makes a health facility liable for the professional negligence of a medical staff member who doesn’t have malpractice insurance or who...
View ArticleMasked Man Robs Government; Faces 10 Years
The mask itself didn’t raise any suspicions. After all, the man wearing it—Richard Toussaint–was an anesthesiologist. But like so many other masked men, he turned out to be a thief. That’s why on...
View ArticleRecovery of Medical Bills: Once Is Enough
Strange as it sounds, Missouri state law allowed federal workers to recover medical bills twice: once under their federal health insurance plan and again from the person (or person’s insurer)...
View ArticleAdmissibility of Insurance Coverage: Sauce for the Goose
When Kerrie Evans’s child was born with cystic fibrosis, she sued her nurse practitioner and doctor for failure to adequately inform her about prenatal testing for CF, making concerns about cost the...
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