So, if until now you had been referring to HIPAA Compliance Audits & Stage II meaningful use readiness as if they were going to be an occurrence in the very distant future, then it is high time you wriggle out of your comfort zone. The HHS Contractor KPMG’s (yes, one of the Big 4!!) analysis of the HIPAA Audit, conducted by OCR (Office For Civil Rights) in December 2012 & the dawn of 2013 revealed the following worrisome statistics.
OCR HIPAA COMPLIANCE NUMBERS:
a. OCR found close to 1000 problems during the audit which encompassed 115 covered entities. The main areas covered during the audits were privacy and data-security.
“You probably don’t know what you don’t know,” said Linda Sanches, OCR Senior Adviser. She also pointed out that such providers might benefit immensely from a thorough relook at the HITECH Law and the related implications with the HIPAA Law. One can easily wonder that with 2013 already lined with a multitude of other initiatives for the clinics which they have to meet (like ICD-10, Stage 2 meaningful use etc), how many of them are really confident of meeting HIPAA statutes in the long term, which brings us to the second statistic.
b. Close to 50 percent of the participants had professed only partial confidence before the audit with only about 30 percent really on a sure footing about HIPAA.
Only 13 of the covered entities cleared the audits with a clean sheet, this accounted for a dismal 10 percent of the entities audited. With nearly 3 million covered entities spanning the length and breadth of the United States, the above statistics, when extrapolated, theoretically means that nearly 2.7 covered entities (including thousands of providers) might be in a soup when it comes to their HIPAA compliance. Nearly 60% of that stems from safe storage of data in EHRs and other IT vaults.
THE OTHER FACE OF THE COIN: Meaningful Use Stage II
Another important initiative that suffers the same ennui as HIPAA is MU Stage II. Many of the providers again are not sure of their expertise when it came to sharing PHI with other providers via EHR or engaging their patients via the same, as Stage II MU demands. Like HIPAA 50% were only partially confident, with just 36% being sure. Interestingly the respondents cited the following to be the primary reasons hampering their adoption:
1. Training and change management – 29%.
2. Lack of dedicated meaningful use team – 12%.
3. Lack of ability to track progress – 19%.
4. Availability of EHR vendors – 6%.
To plug the above loopholes about 30% of the clinics are planning to hire more in-house staff, but about 20% (the more savvy in our estimate) are looking to external EHR support vendors to manage implementation, including transfer of the entire medical billing cycle and medical coding process into a suitable EHR and managing the changes.
BillingParadise Could Be That Support Vendor For You:
With a decade of hands-on experience in servicing over 500 clients when it comes to the RCM Cycle, BillingParadise could be the ideal comrade that 20% of the providers (and we believe a significant more will in the future) are seeking out now. That is because we believe with all these initiatives raining on providers, it takes a special kind of intuition to prioritize and complete each one within its stipulated time. Our existing clients would vouch for that. Remember that the above findings is just the tip of the iceberg, and what lies underneath the surface may very well topple the shipload of federal initiatives, if the covered entities (including the providers) don’t reach out in ways that yield a positive outcome. So be that change !! Call BillingParadise at 888-571-9069 and allow us to tame the bevy of federal initiatives beasts for you.
