Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: May 2012

In March, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT published a proposed rule on EHR certification, a companion to the proposed rule on stage 2 of the meaningful use EHR incentive program that was published on the same day by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: May 2010

Improving the ability of patients to understand and apply health information goes hand in hand with designing systems that deliver it. Both are needed to improve outcomes and reduce disparities.

Recent federal initiatives to promote health IT, including the “meaningful use” EHR incen....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: November 2011

Perhaps one of the biggest jobs related to implementing the ARRA provisions right now is keeping track of the moving parts. Publication of the act in 2009 was a kind of Big Bang-an explosion of provisions that rocked the healthcare universe. Since then, however, the pieces have traveled at dif....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: October 2011

The Office for Civil Rights has been publicly reporting incidents of large-scale health data breaches since early 2010, but last month it reported to Congress numbers that the industry has only guessed at to date-the reports it has received of breaches involving fewer than 500 individuals.

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: January 2012

Last summer the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT heard repeatedly from providers and vendors that they would not have time to prepare for stage 2 of the meaningful use program. With a final rule on stage 2 not expected until summer 2012, vendors and hospitals did not see how th....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: July 2011

The Office for Civil Rights proposed rule on the HITECH modifications to the HIPAA accounting of disclosure provision contains an interesting attempt to balance the mandates of the statute with the realities of today's accountings.

OCR was faced with the difficult task of expanding a....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: September 2011

Approximately 77,000 healthcare providers had registered for the meaningful use EHR incentive programs through July, program officials told the Health IT Policy Committee at its August 3 meeting. That is a significant number, but it leaves plenty of eligible providers and hospitals still to re....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: June 2011

This spring, as the first providers began attesting to their performance in stage 1 of the meaningful use program, the rest of the industry seemed too absorbed with the program's next phase to take much notice.

Through the spring a subgroup of the Health IT Policy Committee was prepa....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: April 2011

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act came out with a bang in February 2009. The rules enacting its privacy and security provisions, however, have trickled out over the subsequent two years. Many of the provisions have the potential for significant impact on HIM operations, and the slow p....

Author: Heubusch, Kevin

Source: Journal of AHIMA

Publication Date: April 2012

There are few surprises in CMS's proposed rule on stage 2 of the meaningful use program. The provisions generally reflect the recommendations of the Health IT Policy Committee made last year, and in the case of the intended change to the timeline, an announcement was made last December.
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