Anyone dealing with healthcare IT in the US will come across HIPAA and HITECH and HITRUST — and it’s easy to get them confused. They’re interrelated and they all concern health information and they all impact healthcare IT. But that certainly doesn’t mean they’re all the same.
Briefly, HIPAA is a law and compliance is mandatory. HITECH is another law that was subsequently folded into HIPAA. And HITRUST is a voluntary means to ensure compliance with laws such as HIPAA, including its HITECH provisions and any others that might come along. Here’s how it all breaks down:
HIPAA
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) covered a lot of healthcare modernization issues, including provisions addressing insurance and taxes. But when we reference HIPAA in the IT world, we’re generally concerned with details in the Act’s Title II.
HIPAA Title II stipulates national standards for digital healthcare information management and movement. Its intent was to establish comprehensive guidance on the way personal health information (PHI) is maintained, exchanged, and protected from unauthorized exposure and theft in healthcare industries. Since the Act was signed into law at the dawn of the dot.com days, it has naturally required amendment over the years.
HITECH
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. HITECH allocated $28B to fund greater adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) through incentives, resulting in a massive digitization of health information. It also outlined additional sets of stipulations for digital standardization and added more privacy and security protections for healthcare data enforced by penalties for compliance failures.
HITECH was consolidated into HIPAA Title II in 2013 with the Final Omnibus Rule, which also expanded security and breach notification details and, notably, extended HIPAA-compliance requirements to business associate agreements. A business associate is any entity that “creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information” for a HIPAA-covered entity. So pretty much anyone handling PHI has to comply with HIPAA — not just hospitals and insurance companies.
Frontline healthcare workers have been doing an incredible job saving lives in ICU beds across the country. However, the healthcare industry has found itself struggling with another pandemic-related challenge, one that’s affecting the ability to provide the quality and care patients expect in their day-to-day overall healthcare maintenance.
As a result of both revenue loss and the loss of patient confidence, providers are looking to overcome a myriad of concerns raised by the pandemic, as they watch their patients postpone regular check-ups and appointments for necessary screenings and treatments because of fears related to COVID-19.
Here’s a list of the five biggest obstacles healthcare providers and medical facilities face right now —and some strategies for overcoming them.
In-Person Patient Exposure
Patients have been postponing their office visits because of the pandemic and it is easy to understand why. The traditional office experience involved sitting in waiting rooms packed with people with little social/physical distancing. More importantly, front desk transactions and workflows also present social distancing obstacles. Contagion ridden point of care clipboards with forms, kiosks, and tablets have been handled by thousands of patients. The current model does not inspire confidence that it is safe nor that the experience will be safer.
To gain the patients confidence with coming back into the practice for appointments, healthcare providers need to address the problems with the traditional waiting room process. Virtual waiting room solutions are the key to reducing wait times, eliminating in-office crowding and reducing the risk of contagion. By offering patient-intake and registration remotely and digitally, virtual waiting rooms allow providers to collect and verify required patient information, signed forms and patient payments prior to the patient’s appointment. With that hurdle overcome, patients will have a much faster and safer visit with minimal contact and wait times.
Perhaps we all know what cardiovascular disease is all about. At a glance, it is nothing to joke about, and it involves all the conditions that affect the normal functioning of the heart and blood vessels. Unfortunately, it sounds pretty dangerous, and statistics show that it is the current leading cause of death for many people worldwide.
The various causes of cardiovascular diseases vary from environmental to hereditary and cultural. And for many decades, many physicians and technologists have done plenty of research regarding innovative technologies. As a result, new ways of managing and treating the heart and circulatory diseases have risen. This article explores the 6 ways how technology is used in the cardiovascular field, which everyone wishing to pursue a cardiologist career needs to know.
Aids In Heart Surgery
With modern technology, scientists have created a 3D-printed heart model using MRI scans of young children with congenital heart disease. By doing so, it becomes easier to facilitate patient communication before surgery.
Besides that, these unique heart models enable doctors to perfectly explain the type and nature of the heart disorders to their patients and families. In fact, most of the patients and family members have confirmed that these 3D heart models are handy, realistic, and incredibly easier to understand.
What it means is that this customized approach allows the patients and their beloved ones to understand their condition best. Therefore, they can easily engage with the surgical team and decide on their children’s most suitable treatment.
Telehealth, telemedicine, and virtual care are often used interchangeably to describe remote healthcare visits. But virtual care means something much more than just telehealth or telemedicine. In fact, virtual care is in a category all its own. It is the logical, necessary next step in providing access to healthcare for all.
Telemedicine is Evolving
Remote monitoring and telehealth are nothing new. For decades, doctors have been able to monitor patients remotely or provide medical consults over the phone. Anxious parents have called in to 24-7 nurse hotlines to get advice about childhood illnesses and accidents. More recently, with the advancement of smart phones and web cams, new business models were created to connect patients with doctors over the internet.
However, most people still preferred to visit their doctors in person, and most doctors and healthcare centers weren’t considering a major shift to video any time soon.
Then COVID hit. It accelerated peoples’ desire for virtual healthcare visits and helped them feel more comfortable using video conferencing technology. Zoom, FaceTime, Google Meet and Skype became the go-to solutions for clinics large and small that didn’t yet have telehealth in place.
Video conferencing did good things for healthcare:
• Prevented even higher rates of delayed care
• Enabled providers to triage patients from a distance
• Gave quarantined providers a way to treat patients remotely
• Kept more clinics open and providers working
• Improved access to care for more patients
And while these video conference technologies solved an immediate problem, they quickly showed their limitations. These bandage solutions solved one issue while encountering (and even creating) many more problems.
Rapid expansion of video conferencing for healthcare exposed its weaknesses from HIPAA compliance issues, non-secure connections, the inability to bring a third party onto the call, wasted time as patients and/or doctors wait for the other party to join, limited number of users, concurrent calls, and call minutes and even the limited length of calls. The pandemic accelerated everything, even the “bad habits” of telemedicine.
COVID-19 has brought a great deal of change to how we live our lives. The need to maintain safe-distance protocols has seen many industries shift to remote operations wherever possible. In healthcare spaces, this has been a significant challenge. We have been forced to adapt to achieve the delicate balance between ensuring patients get the care they need, and reducing the risk of exposure.
This is where telehealth has really come into its own. While the numbers are still up in the air, one recent study found that insurance claims for telehealth services increased 2,938% between November 2019 and November 2020. Patients and professionals alike have in some ways been forced past their personal and technological roadblocks, discovering the many benefits that utilizing care services remotely can offer. Indeed, as we start to see some light at the end of the dark tunnel that has engulfed our society over the last year or so, telehealth has become a more permanent feature of our healthcare landscape.
This raises some interesting questions and some important issues about the near future of telehealth. We’re going to take a look at what we are likely to see as we emerge from the pandemic. What tools and practices could make a difference? What problems do we still need to solve?
Improving Safety
Remote appointments are already starting to make our lives safer. Particularly for those in rural communities who may not have immediate access to doctors, telehealth means that medical professionals can visually assess conditions and give advice. However, as we move toward the future there needs to be an emphasis on how medical professionals can treat a wider range of conditions, preventing patients from taking the unnecessary risk of exacerbating their conditions by traveling to doctors’ offices.
Part of this involves producing an infrastructure with various providers that supports collaboration. Facilities must build relationships that allow them to assess a patient remotely, then hand off to a specialist, traveling nursing staff, or pharmacist who can visit patients to undertake further care. Alongside these relationships, it’s important to build, and frequently assess, robust protocols that ensure that these collaborations are undertaken efficiently and safely, without any points at which patient welfare slips through the net.
Many changes come with aging that are not health concerns, such as gray hairs, menopause, and wrinkles. Unfortunately, some symptoms could be a sign of something more serious. While you might be quick to dismiss some issues as ordinary things that happen in old age, here are six symptoms you definitely shouldn’t ignore:
Deteriorating Vision
Deteriorating vision is regular in old age, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find the root cause. Oftentimes, you will simply be prescribed a glasses prescription. Other times, however, there may be another underlying condition. Cataracts are common in those over forty and require more treatment than a simple prescription. Fortunately, cataract surgery can restore your vision for life. By opting for this treatment, you give yourself the chance to rid yourself of cataracts and see clearly throughout your senior years.
Memory Loss
Memory loss is another common symptom in old age, and sometimes the best treatment is simple brain training. Memory loss can also be an early sign of dementia, which is very serious and needs treatment as soon as possible. If your memory loss is impacting your day-to-day life, and you find yourself becoming confused, then see your doctor as soon as possible.
Growing up, when we grazed our knees, got stung by a bee, or ran a temperature, our mother pulled remedies from the trusty medicine drawer. Whether you have a cabinet, drawer, or tote, you should always have essential medical supplies on hand.
We may do our best not to get sick or injured, but sometimes it seems unavoidable. We are going to explain the basics of what to stock in your medicine cabinet. If you have children heading off to university, this is the ideal time to double up on everything for them. You can also use this opportunity to create mini-medicine kits for your cars, RV, or handbags.
Where do you keep your medical supplies?
Believe it or not, the bathroom is not the ideal place for your medicine cabinet. Heat and humidity don’t work well with a variety of medicines, and can make them less effective. Try to find a convenient, dry and cool location that is out of reach of any children. Remember, kids are fantastic climbers when they set their mind to something.
By Devin Partida, technology writer and the editor-in-chief, ReHack.com.
On Dec. 1, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its final ruling on policy and payment changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) for 2021. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, the final adjustments from CMS went into effect.
Primarily, the changes focus on expanding the services that telehealth covers and making them more permanent. In addition, CMS lowered the conversion factor for 2021. However, through expanding remote services and changing limitations on payments, it’s now critical to see how Health IT will need to adjust.
IT departments have a unique set of responsibilities throughout the pandemic. As more services become available through telehealth, the organization must focus on securing those interactions and all the patient and business data that comes with them.
The Changes From CMS
The changes from the CMS ruling ultimately affect how health IT operates. New dynamics entail increased health IT services.
Topping the list of changes, the ruling cites a decrease in conversion to $32.41, down from $36.09. After reducing the conversion rate, CMS then estimates Medicare spending will increase by $10.2 billion in 2021. This change makes room for the industry to add more services in the telehealth sector, which has been invaluable for staying safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Accordingly, the ruling expanded what qualifies as a telehealth service that Medicare will cover. Clinical social workers, psychologists, physical therapists, speed-language pathologists, and occupational therapists are all among the newest additions. They can now bill patients for telehealth services.
