Home Health & Hospice Week
Hospice Notifies Families About HIPAA Breach
Instead of electronic files, it’s hard copy paper files that have led Hospice of Anchorage in Alaska to notify 300 patients and their families of a potential HIPAA breach. The hospice experienced a break-in over Christmas and “the perpetrator accessed locked paper files,” it says in a notice on its website. “Although no files appeared to be compromised, federal and state privacy regulations require us to provide notification of this incident. We take our obligation to protect the privacy and security of our patients’ confidential information very seriously.” The hospice mailed notification letters to those affected on Jan. 17. That included about 300 families, reports television station KTVA. The website notice “serves to reach those whose contact information is not available in our system,” Hospice of Anchorage adds. “We offer our heartfelt apology for any inconvenience or concern this event may have caused.”
Home Health & Hospice Week
- Review Choice Demonstration:
Overwhelming Majority Of Texas HHAs Are Opting For RCD Pre-Claim Review
More than a third of Texas agencies have entered their RCD choice so far. Pre-Claim [...] - Medical Review:
Know Your Affirmation From Your Approval Rate
Approval rates are tougher. Under the Review Choice Demonstration, choosing the Pre-Claim Review option is [...] - Demonstration Projects:
New Year Has Brought New RCD Developments
Here’s how results calculation works. Some Illinois agencies were placed in the wrong review choice [...] - Reimbursement:
iQIES Problems Persist
Keep a record of your failed OASIS submission attempts, NAHC advises. While it’s still too [...] - OASIS:
Change How You Answer M2420 Effective Immediately
Response 2 now applies only to Medicare home health skilled services. Add another OASIS change [...] - Industry Note:
OIG To Eye IRF Discharges To Home Health
Will examination lead to drop in IRF referrals? Another home health-related topic has landed on [...] - Industry Note:
MedPAC Wants Cuts
As expected, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has finalized its recommendations to Congress to cut [...] - Industry Note:
Beware This Hospice Billing Trap
Do you know how to bill for a day when a patient changes hospice care [...] - Industry Note:
CMS Quality Conference Is Next Month
If you’d like to join in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ quality improvement [...] - Industry Note:
CMS Bungles Some MBIs
Medicare’s conversion to using MBIs rather than HICNs has been pretty smooth, but hasn’t gone [...] - Industry Note:
MAC To Docs: Get Your HH Coding Together
Do you need help getting your referring physicians to provide the documentation necessary for PDGM [...] - Industry Note:
Include IDG Support
Don’t leave out Interdisciplinary Group documentation when you respond to a hospice medical review request. [...] - Industry Note:
Hospice Notifies Families About HIPAA Breach
Instead of electronic files, it’s hard copy paper files that have led Hospice of Anchorage [...] - Industry Note:
Hospice Adds To Name
Another hospice is tweaking its name to indicate its wide array of services. Last fall, [...] - Industry Note:
Hospice Builds Facility
Nonprofit hospice provider Pathways plans to build a 12-patient inpatient hospice facility on its Ft. [...] - Industry Note:
Supervisor Pleads Guilty
A home health supervisor has pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud in the ongoing Moriarty Consultants [...] - Industry Note:
NPR Criticizes Hospice
Mainstream media is taking another swipe at hospice. “Patients Want To Die At Home, But [...]
