Category Archive: Healthcare IT

CMS Payment Adjustments Set to Begin January 1, 2015

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS.gov) recently updated their ‘Payment Adjustments & Hardship Exceptions Tipsheet for Eligible Professionals’.  The information pertains to Medicare Eligible Professionals who are not meaningful users of Certified Electronic Health Record (EHR) and the payment adjustments that will be applied beginning January 1, 2015.  Meaningful use is using certified electronic health record (EHR) technology to: improve quality,

By | October 9, 2014 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |

Apple’s HealthKit and Personal Health Records

On June 2nd, Apple Inc. announced its HealthKit platform, “a single place that applications can contribute to a composite profile of your activity and health.” Along with Samsung’s SAMI (Samsung Architecture for Multimodal Interactions) and Google’s anticipated Google Fit, HealthKit holds out the promise of having one’s pertinent health information available anywhere, anytime.

By | June 17, 2014 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |

Benefiting from Healthcare IT Changes and Section 179

Section 179 of the IRS Tax Code allows a business to deduct the full purchase price of certain types of financed or leased equipment and software for the current tax year.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), as well as other stimulus acts including 2013’s American Taxpayer Relief Act, have increased the Section 179 deduction limit,

By | November 15, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |

Stolen Laptops Lead to Large Data Breach

AHMC Healthcare, based in Alhambra, CA, reported that the theft of two laptops has resulted in 729,000 patients’ protected health information (PHI) being compromised.  This is the 11th largest HIPAA breach so far.

Surveillance video showed that a transient broke into an administrative office on October 12th and made off with two password-protected laptop computers,

By | October 29, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |

One Year After Hurricane Sandy

Almost exactly one year ago, Hurricane Sandy did major damage in our New York/New Jersey area. Whether you believe in global warming or not, no matter where your office is located, we can’t deny that storms are increasing in frequency and force year after year. It is sad that we keep seeing practices losing valuable data every week,

By | October 22, 2013 | Healthcare IT |

PHI Exposed by Vendor’s Security Lapse

Cogent Healthcare announced last week that a third-party vendor’s security lapse left patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI) exposed on the Internet.  While no financial or Social Security Number information was included, Cogent is offering a year-long subscription to identity theft protection and credit monitoring services to the 32,000 affected patients.

Medical transcriptions vendor M2ComSys,

By | August 14, 2013 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |

ICD-10 is Coming: Are You Ready?

The compliance date for ICD-10 implementation is just fourteen months away, and the new code set is inspiring negativity in some.  With over five times as many codes as the current ICD-9 set, and a radically different structure to boot, “ICD-10 will be one of the most significant changes the physician practice community has ever undertaken –

By | August 9, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Healthcare Laws and Regulations |

Password Vulnerabilities in Medical Devices

A recent alert from the Department of Homeland Security warns that approximately 300 medical devices from 40 different vendors contain hard-coded passwords.  Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle, technical directors and researchers at security vendor Cylance, discovered the “backdoor passwords” in devices such as patient monitors, ventilators, defibrillators, infant incubators, and lab equipment.  Some of the devices can be interfaced with EMR software such as Lytec MD or Medisoft Clinical.

By | July 1, 2013 | Healthcare IT |

Google Glass in the Doctor’s Office

The Google Glass device, wearable technology with a head-mounted display, is generating controversy over its potential impact on society in general and healthcare in particular.  One of the entrants to the Glass Explorer program, which made the devices available to “bold, creative individuals” for testing, wrote about the possibility of “images filing directly to EMR charts and dictation on the fly all from Glass.”  

By | June 4, 2013 | Electronic Medical Records News, Healthcare IT |

Lyfechannel Wins HHS’ Mobile App Challenge

The Department of Health and Human Services recently named Lyfechannel’s myfamily app as the winner of its Healthfinder.gov Mobile App Challenge.  The challenge, sponsored by HHS’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and managed with help from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and healthcare IT company Health 2.0, sought software developers to design and create a mobile app that makes preventative care information and content from healthfinder.gov easily accessible and customizable.  

By | May 2, 2013 | Healthcare IT, Medical Billing Software |

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