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Almost 80 Percent of Clinicians Still Use Hospital-Issued Pagers

By Heather Landi for Healthcare Informatics A study examining the communication technologies used by hospital-based clinicians found that close to 80 percent (79.8 percent) of clinicians continue to use hospital-provided pagers and 49 percent of those clinicians report they receive patient care-related messages most commonly by pager. Communication technologies have expanded significantly to include standard text…

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CDI in the Outpatient Setting: Finding the ‘Hidden Gems’ of Opportunity for Improvement

By Kay Merriweather, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, COC, CHDA, CDIP; Leslie Slater, RHIA, CCDS, CIC, CRC; and Michele Bohley, RHIA, CCS for AHIMA “If it’s not documented, it wasn’t done.” This is one of the first axioms health information management (HIM) professionals learn. HIM professionals have witnessed the evolution of quality documentation, with patient education becoming…

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Ransomware Cyber Attacks: How to Prepare & Respond

By Christine Bucci for BRITTON GALLAGHER Hackers are wielding their power across Europe by unleashing a rash of ransomware cyber attacks on companies, with the most severe hitting the Ukraine. Ransomware is a type of malware that holds your computer and data files hostage until the ransom pays the demanded amount. In the most recent European…

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Survey: Hospital, Office Physicians Say EHRs Hinder Patient Interaction, in Different Ways

By Heather Landi for Healthcare Informatics While it’s no secret that physicians have complaints about electronic health records (EHRs) and the impact on patient interactions, one survey has found that hospital-based physicians and office-based physicians have slightly different concerns about how maintaining electronic records impacts clinical encounters. An analysis by researchers at Brown University and…

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Has CAC Lived Up to Its Promise? Providers, Vendors Weigh In

Article by Lisa A. Eramo, MA. This article was originally published on the Journal of AHIMA website on June 1, 2017 and is republished here with permission. In the months leading up to the ICD-10 go-live, many hospitals implemented computer-assisted coding (CAC) in the hopes that it would offset anticipated productivity losses and boost coding accuracy. Now…

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Christie: Opioid Commission May Propose Changing HIPAA Rules

By Katherine Landergan for POLITICO MORRISTOWN — The presidential opioid commission may propose changing patient privacy regulations so there are clear exemptions for overdose cases, Gov. Chris Christie, the commission chairman, said Monday. Christie said the commission could recommend a retooling of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, so physicians…

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OIG Estimates $729.4M in Erroneous EHR Incentive Payments

By Kate Monica for EHR Intelligence OIG estimates 12 percent of the total Medicare EHR incentive payments issued to EPs between 2011 and 2014 were made incorrectly. CMS overpaid an estimated $729.4 million in Medicare EHR incentive payments to eligible professionals (EPs) who failed to meet meaningful use requirements, the Office of Inspector General (OIG)…

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Five Sentenced in $19 Million ‘Fake Cerner’ Fraud Scheme

By Thomas Dworetzky for DOTmed HealthCareBusiness Daily News The leader and his four co-defendants in a long term con in which the gang created fake “Cerner Corporation” employees to bilk investors, banks and businesses has been sentenced to prison. Albert Davis, who had pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a Kansas City U.S. District Court…

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