Healthicity Blog

Over here at Healthicity, we’ve got some tricks up our sleeves.

You see, it’s our goal to create the best thought-leadership material out there because we want our readers, healthcare professionals like yourselves, to have all of the answers you need at your fingertips.

It’s finally here. The long awaited Final Rule from CMS for Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities was recently published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2016 (Fed. Reg. Vol. 81, No. 192 pages 68688-68872).

Halloween is just around the corner. So, in light of the spookiest of holidays, one of our copywriters has taken a stab (ha!) at this blog post to add some holiday fun to our expert’s original, and otherwise respectable, thought leadership piece.

It’s the 21st Century and continuous education is more important than ever. In the last 20 years, we’ve experienced an explosion in information, technology, and our already dynamic industry has rapidly evolved (robots, EHRs, HIPAA, so many compliance rules!).

1. 10 largest HIPAA settlement fines - “HHS' Office for Civil Rights is becoming more aggressive in enforcing HIPAA regulations. In the first seven months of 2016 alone, HHS recorded close to $15 million in settlement payments.

According to OCR, Care New England Health System (CNE) has common ownership or control of over 8 covered entity hospitals or clinics in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

As we’ve talked about recently, when it comes to compliance violations, incorrectly managing Business Associates is often the culprit behind larger compliance violations. Like the recent settlement where OHSU was nailed for 2.7 Million Dollars.

I’ll admit, I’m a little biased when clients ask if they should outsource their risk analysis. Afterall, I'm a HIPAA consultant and expert with a practice that focuses on risk assessment and penetration testing. I make my living conducting risk analysis.