News

By Lynda M. Johnson, Timothy C. Ezell and Tonya S. Gierke Published in Arkansas Medical News (July/August) Ponemon Institute recently calculated the average cost of a healthcare data breach in 2017 to be $380 per record. In addition, the most recent enforcement data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) indicates that the OCR has settled or imposed Civil Monetary Penalties of nearly $79 million dollars since the enactment of HIPAA.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), healthcare workers are four times more likely to be a victim of workplace violence with nearly 75 percent of all reported workplace assaults occurring in the healthcare and social service settings.

By Lynda M. Johnson, Timothy C. Ezell and Tonya S. Gierke Published in Arkansas Medical News (March/April) It is no secret that there are extensive challenges facing healthcare providers in today’s regulatory environment. In particular, the significant increase in government healthcare program audit activity over the last 10 to 15 years has created additional uncertainty and risk in the healthcare industry.

In the January/February 2018 issue of Arkansas Medical News, healthcare attorneys Lynda Johnson, Timothy Ezell and Tonya Gierke begin a series titled "The Anatomy of an Audit." The series will appear bimonthly in the magazine and will discuss various audits and offer suggested courses of action.

The attorneys at Friday, Eldredge & Clark recommend hospitals and healthcare providers perform quarterly audit reviews to provide assurance that their financial and operational controls are sufficient and to identify and repair any potential risk to the organization.

The Arkansas Health Information Management Association hosted a half-day workshop focused on legal issues in the industry. Attorneys Lynda Johnsonand Tonya Gierke presented at the event. Topics discussed included an overview of legal health records, responding to subpoenas, the retention and destruction of health records, HIPAA security rule and audits and amendments to electronic health records.

While the Federal Government has many contracted auditors to assist in identifying overpayments to health care providers, by far the most dangerous of these auditors, from the health care provider’s perspective, is the ZPIC.