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Course "HIPAA - Putting an Organizational Compliance Program in Place" has been pre-approved by RAPS as eligible for up to 12 credits towards a participant's RAC recertification upon full completion Overview: Being in compliance with HIPAA involves not only ensuring you provide the appropriate patient rights and controls on your uses and disclosures of protected health information, but you also have the proper policies and procedures in place. If audited or the subject of a compliance review you will be required to show the government you have all the necessary documentation in place for safeguarding patient Protected Health Information and indicate how you addressed all required security safeguards. This starts with the fundamentals of a HIPAA compliance program. If your healthcare practice, business, or organization needs to understand how to put HIPAA compliance program in place or make sure the current program is adequate and can withstand government scrutiny, please join us for this informative and interactive 2 day training course. Why you should attend With an increase in HIPAA enforcement and Phase 2 audits underway, many organizations need to fully understand the requirements of a compliance program. Attendees will leave the course clearly understanding of all the requirements for a comprehensive HIPAA compliance program and what steps need to be taken to mitigate risk. The seminar will include practical exercise to assist in knowing how to develop, review, and amend HIPAA policy and procedure. After completing this course, a Covered Entity or Business Associate will have a clear roadmap for what needs to be place when it comes to all of the HIPAA regulations. Areas Covered in the Session * Why was HIPAA created? * What is HITECH and the Omnibus Rule? * Who Must Comply with HIPAA Requirements? * What are the HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules? * What is a HIPAA Compliance Program? * What is a HIPAA Risk Management Plan? * What is meant by

Course "Texting and E-mail with Patients: Patient Requests and Complying with HIPAA " has been pre-approved by RAPS as eligible for up to 12 credits towards a participant's RAC recertification upon full completion. Overview: With the recent advances in portable technology, more and more organizations and their users are taking advantage of mobile devices to save time and get work done more efficiently. Texting, portable e-mail, and Apps are revolutionizing the ways health care providers interact with their patients and get their work done. But the use of these devices comes with hidden costs of compliance, especially if they lead to a reportable breach under HIPAA or state laws. HIPAA Privacy and Security Officers have been struggling to keep up with the use of the devices to protect patient privacy and avoid compliance issues. Even if these devices aren't in formal use in your organization, you need to act now to anticipate their use and make sure they are used properly. This session is designed to provide intensive, two-day training in HIPAA compliance as it relates to the use of mobile devices, including how to use them with Protected Health Information, the policies and procedures you need to have in place to use them securely, and how to manage issues of the "BYOD" phenomenon. The session provides the background and details for any manager of health information privacy and security to know what issues to look for with mobile devices, what needs to be done for HIPAA compliance, and what can happen when compliance is not adequate. Audits and enforcement will be explained, as well as privacy and security breaches and how to prevent them. Numerous references and sample documents will be provided. The session will be valuable for both newcomers to HIPAA compliance as well as seasoned veterans. HIPAA compliance will be explained and discussed in detail, from the basics through the latest changes and new technology issues, so that the attendee will have a coherent u

Overview: New changes modifying the HIPAA Privacy and Security Regulations are going into place to meet the privacy and security mandates within the HITECH Act in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The changes include establishing new rights for individuals as well as changes to the limitations on uses and disclosures. New requirements for patient access to records and requirements to notify individuals in the event of a breach are only two of the many areas affected in the new law, including new requirements for restriction and accounting of disclosures and increased enforcement activity. Covered entities that use electronic health records (EHRs) will need to meet new access and disclosure rules and all kinds of business associates and their subcontractors will need to establish compliance programs. And if you are required to have a HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, you will need to update that to show all the new rights that patients will have, such as electronic copies, new rights to restrict disclosures, and much more. Business associates are now directly covered by the HIPAA privacy and security regulations and are liable for fines and penalties if they do not comply. If a business associate supplies services that interact with the new changes to the rules, the BA will need to be aware of the new requirements. We will explain what a Business Associate needs to do differently under the new regulations. Electronic records have new demands placed on them, in both providing access and in accounting for all disclosures of health information - the electronic age in health care brings new obligations to serve individuals as well as manage health information for healthcare professionals. We will discuss how disclosures must be tracked in an EHR and review the various ways patient records can be supplied electronically. The new regulations will be reviewed and their effects on usual practices will be discussed, as will what policies need to be chang

Overview: Upon completing this course participants will leave with a preliminary preventive control implementation plan and will: * Understand US FDA final rules for the Preventive Controls for Human and Animal Foods * Define and review your current system to identify gaps in your preventive controls planning. * Be able to develop and implement a valid preventive control company food safety plan to close any gaps * Write and implement appropriate procedures. * Know your requirements for control over your supply chain * Be able to plan and implement HARPC * Be able to perform environmental monitoring * Know how cross contamination can impact your preventive control plan * Know the difference between validation and verification * Understand and be able to use statistical process controls basics * Be able to plan and implement a team approach to preventive controls * Be able to help your food importers to jump through FDA hoops * Develop a system to risk rank your suppliers * Have a plan in hand that will pass any validation check for preventive controls * Understand some of the technology and costs that can help you establish preventive controls * Prove that your system actually prevents food safety problems * Be able to document and report results to upper management, external food safety auditors and FDA auditors * Save your company money Establish simple, low cost complete data collection and reporting systems. * Establish teambuilding between food safety and quality personnel to develop and implement changes to your current system * Understand food safety, security and recall responsibilities in light of cargo theft, adulteration and temperature failures * Learn how to use your system to get some ROI and improve your marketing position * Review current and future technologies designed to improve and simplify data collection * Establish a completely documented system Why should you attend: Validation of preventive co

Overview: Mental health care practitioners work in today's diverse, fast-changing, multidisciplinary health care environment. Nowhere but in mental health is there such diversity of clinicians who provide the same or similar services of counseling and therapy. A potential client has a wide choice of mental health providers from whom to choose. Yet each individual mental health profession has a unique education, training, and experience requirement for practice. While similarities exist, requirements differ from state to state and even from profession to profession with a single state. What are these requirements and how do they apply? The state's authority and power over mental health practitioners often presents challenges to these mental health professionals that are not easy to navigate. Differing sources of legal and ethical authority govern each respective health care practitioner in ways that are similar but not the same. Ethics and law are similar, but not the same. All mental health practitioners must adhere to standards of state law which govern their professional practices, including the very core of the doctor-patient relationship. Codes of ethics and state law may both apply to govern the conduct of this clinician. Even some state laws are referred to as ethical codes. Complaints as to alleged misconduct or ethical failings are received and investigated by a state agency and leave the mental health practitioner with an uncertain process to handle and to defend the state action against them. With this background, this seminar empowers the full understanding and application of ethics and laws for mental health practitioners. Learn to identify and understand an ethical framework for a sound mental health practice. An ethical framework is essential to having the right perspective to examine mental health dilemmas. Compare and contrast regulatory laws and codes of ethics to understand their differing applicability. Know the difference between laws and ethics,

Overview: Many medical entities are increasingly struggling to manage revenue effectively. Self pay is on the rise due to high deductibles. Bad debt is increasing. What is your plan to manage these areas? Staff trained in denial management? Variances? Are they handling these areas in a timely manner? Payers have time limits in which dollars can be salvaged. Missing those strategic times mean dollars lost. Don't leave money on the table. We will discuss multiple avenues in which strong training and timely action can equal $$$. Why should you Attend: Don't lose hard earned revenue. Learn tips to strategic follow up, when and how to manage the appeal process. Is the claim appealable? Partial payments and why? Today's industry of high dollar deductibles create the necessity to expend additional efforts on self-pay accounts. There is a significant difference in collecting small co-pays and managing large balances. Bad debt creep? What is your plan for managing these areas? Areas Covered in the Session: Hire the right staff - Then engage in ongoing education Variances and denial management Billing compliance Coding for specificity, co-existing conditions and correct modifiers Supporting medical necessity CCI edits and unbundling Productivity Claims follow up Payer processing edits Additional development requests Handling problem claims and appeals Who Will Benefit: Coders Billers Revenue cycle Physicians, mid-level providers Nurses Claims follow-up Managers Speaker Profile Dorothy D. Steed is an Independent Healthcare Consultant and Educator in Atlanta. She was a Medicare specialist for a large hospital system and a physician coding audit supervisor for another hospital system, with 38 years of experience in healthcare. Additionally, she is an instructor at a state technical college in Atlanta, provides auditing & training in both facility and physician services, and has been a speaker at several healthcare conferences. Ms. Steed has written articles for

Overview: With the recent advances in portable technology, more and more organizations and their users are taking advantage of mobile devices to save time and get work done more efficiently. Texting, portable e-mail, and Apps are revolutionizing the ways health care providers interact with their patients and get their work done. But the use of these devices comes with hidden costs of compliance, especially if they lead to a reportable breach under HIPAA or state laws. HIPAA Privacy and Security Officers have been struggling to keep up with the use of the devices to protect patient privacy and avoid compliance issues. Even if these devices aren't in formal use in your organization, you need to act now to anticipate their use and make sure they are used properly. This session is designed to provide intensive, two-day training in HIPAA compliance as it relates to the use of mobile devices, including how to use them with Protected Health Information, the policies and procedures you need to have in place to use them securely, and how to manage issues of the "BYOD" phenomenon. The session provides the background and details for any manager of health information privacy and security to know what issues to look for with mobile devices, what needs to be done for HIPAA compliance, and what can happen when compliance is not adequate. Audits and enforcement will be explained, as well as privacy and security breaches and how to prevent them. Numerous references and sample documents will be provided. The session will be valuable for both newcomers to HIPAA compliance as well as seasoned veterans. HIPAA compliance will be explained and discussed in detail, from the basics through the latest changes and new technology issues, so that the attendee will have a coherent understanding of not only the rules, but also how to think about compliance and make sound compliance decisions on a day-to-day basis in the context of mobile devices. Agenda Day One Day one sets the stage with an ov

Course "HIPAA - Putting an Organizational Compliance Program in Place" has been pre-approved by RAPS as eligible for up to 12 credits towards a participant's RAC recertification upon full completion. Overview: Being in compliance with HIPAA involves not only ensuring you provide the appropriate patient rights and controls on your uses and disclosures of protected health information, but you also have the proper policies and procedures in place. If audited or the subject of a compliance review you will be required to show the government you have all the necessary documentation in place for safeguarding patient Protected Health Information and indicate how you addressed all required security safeguards. This starts with the fundamentals of a HIPAA compliance program. If your healthcare practice, business, or organization needs to understand how to put HIPAA compliance program in place or make sure the current program is adequate and can withstand government scrutiny, please join us for this informative and interactive 2 day training course. Why you should attend: With an increase in HIPAA enforcement and Phase 2 audits underway, many organizations need to fully understand the requirements of a compliance program. Attendees will leave the course clearly understanding of all the requirements for a comprehensive HIPAA compliance program and what steps need to be taken to mitigate risk. The seminar will include practical exercise to assist in knowing how to develop, review, and amend HIPAA policy and procedure. After completing this course, a Covered Entity or Business Associate will have a clear roadmap for what needs to be place when it comes to all of the HIPAA regulations. Areas Covered in the Session: · Why was HIPAA created? · What is HITECH and the Omnibus Rule? · Who Must Comply with HIPAA Requirements? · What are the HIPAA Security and Privacy Rules? · What i

Course "Internal Auditing for the Medical Device Industry" has been pre-approved by RAPS as eligible for up to 12 credits towards a participant's RAC recertification upon full completion. Overview: This course provides an overview of internal auditing requirements and techniques for medical device companies as a method for risk management and quality improvement. The course will cover auditing requirements, audit planning, preparation, knowledge, auditor skills, interviews, documents and records review, objective evidence, audit report writing and corrective action. Why should you attend: Attendees should attend this seminar for risk management and improvement purposes to identify weaknesses, problems, compliance risks, and improvement opportunities. Who Will Benefit: * Quality Manager * Quality Associate * Quality Engineer * Quality Technician * Regulatory Associate Agenda: Day One Lecture 1: Overview of an auditing program, principles of quality management systems and how they related to auditing, benefits of auditing, and what is auditing. Lecture 2: Types of audits, auditor qualifications, ethics, responsibilities, audit phases, audit planning, and scheduling. Lecture 3: Conducting audits, interview techniques, objective evidence, data collection, tracing, use of checklists, and reviewing documents and records. Lecture 4: Conducting process audits, running closing meetings, audit report writing, corrective actions, and improvement Day Two Lecture 1: Overview to auditing to ISO 13485 and FDA QSR. Global differences which affect auditing approaches, auditing document control and record keeping, management responsibility, and resource management. Lecture 2: Auditing order handling, design control, purchasing, and supplier controls. Lecture 3: Auditing production, validation, and preservation. inspection and testing, control of test equipment, customer property, and sterilization Lecture 4: Auditing customer feedback, internal auditing programs, complaint

MyDoctorsChart Drummoned Certified EHR provides physicians with various integrated features such as patient's past medical history, clinical examinations, social and family history, surgical records, current assessments, radiological images, lab results, financial information etc. Drummond Certification means that MyDoctorsChart EHR management system satisfies the stated functionality, inter-operability, utility and security standards.

Watch how Ruhayna Mukhi, a Board Certified Family Physician, benefits from CureMD's All-in-One solution (http://bit.ly/1Jod7iu). She can easily make custom note templates based on patient demographics and benefits from the mobility of the system through her tablet - all contributing towards her practice efficiency. Read more http://www.curemd.com/testimonials.asp

Overview: Health care practitioners and other licensed professionals work in today's diverse, fast-changing, multidisciplinary environment. All licensed professions have higher rates of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and mental health issues. Yet each individual profession has a unique, though similar, state laws which govern how state licensing agencies take action against the professional so as to protect the public. The state's authority and power over licensed professionals often presents challenges to the impaired practitioner that are not easy to navigate. All licensed professionals must adhere to standards of state law which govern their professional practices and include prohibitions for impaired practice - even impairment along that is apart from any direct professional harm. Complaints that are received and investigated by a state agency leave the licensed professional with an uncertain process to handle the state action against them. Coupled with numerous related consequences, such as loss of employment, family issues and divorce, and criminal actions, the licensed professional must handle all these challenges successfully. Learn to identify and understand varying state laws that apply to allow disciplinary action against the licensed professional, both immediately and temporarily, and those which are permanent and final. Review the most common successful elements of the rehabilitation of the licensed professional faced with the deadly consequences of addiction. Compare and contrast regulatory laws and due process requirements for state action. This allows the licensed professional to avoid career-ending sanctions and to defend successfully against legal actions which may result in ruinous practice and career consequences for the professional. This program offers an objective, thorough review of laws which apply to the impaired licensed professional. Why should you attend: Health care practitioners are faced with a higher lifetime risk of drug abuse,

Overview: In this webinar, Hope will present the lessons she's learned over her career as a grant writer and editor in medical research. By identifying simple solutions to common problems, participants will learn tools to improve their ability create competitive grant applications and increase their academic and research productivity. To write compelling grant applications, this webinar will cover: How your choice of words will help you stay within page limits without compromising the science How to minimize abbreviations to improve readability and respect reviewer time constraints How to use Microsoft Word efficiently to improve page layout and readability How to manage references by enlisting online databases and reference management software How and when to stop developing the content to meet both grantor and institutional deadlines Why should you Attend: Many Grant Writing workshops do not teach writing per se. Though useful for beginning grant writers, most focus on understanding the application process and the various sections of a grant. For participants wanting to learn to actually write a grant, they are often left to figure out the technique for themselves. In addition, funding opportunity applications (FOAs) have changed quite rapidly in the past few years and require more focused writing in fewer pages. Competition has increased as budgets have shrunk, and knowing how to make the most out of both the time and the length of a grant project can prove challenging and extremely stressful. This webinar is for both new and experienced grant writers, either scientists and principal investigators or writers and other support staff. By using common resources (MS Word, EndNote, PubMed), the webinar content is designed to help grant-writing teams increase their efficiency in the writing process and also meet the requirements of the FOAs. Plus, plain language and good writing practices taught in this webinar will ensure straight-forward, content-rich, and well

Overview: Today's diverse, fast-changing, multidisciplinary mental health care environment involves many mental health care professionals who work together for the common goal of the patient. This includes physicians/psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, psychologists, and others. Nothing in health care is more fractured than in mental health among a multitude of mental health practitioners. Like physicians/psychiatrists and psychiatric nurses, psychologists as health care practitioners obtained an education, passed applicable examinations, completed professional training, and hold a license to practice their chosen profession of psychology, often by being educated and trained at the doctoral level. The license to practice is issued by the state agency which has exclusive jurisdiction over this health care practitioner. Thereafter, the state's authority and power over the psychologist often presents challenges to that professional that are not easy to navigate. Their governing state agency routinely handles, investigates, and dismisses- or prosecutes - alleged violations of law that can be career ending for the psychologist if pursued. But that process takes time with many steps necessary for due process of law. One of the ultimate actions the state may take is to issue a suspension or revocation of the psychologist's professional license. Yet many state actions fall short of such drastic outcomes, but still have serious, permanent consequences for the psychologist as a licensed health care professional. Learn to identify the legal authority for state agencies to regulate the practice of psychology. Seek to understand and defend against state actions which may result in ruinous practice and career consequences for the health care professional. This program offers an objective, thorough review of the ethical and legal violations committed by psychologists. This program also reviews defenses with practice tips to defend successfully those common violations. Otherwis

Overview: In this session we will discuss the HIPAA audit and enforcement programs and how they work, and discuss the areas that caused the most issues in prior audits. We will explore what kind of issues and what kind of entities had the most problems, and show where entities need to improve their compliance the most. We will also explore the typical risk issues that lead to breaches of health information and see how those issues may be a target for auditors in the new 2016 audits. We will review the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol used in 2012 to show what documentation needs to be on hand should your organization be selected for an audit in the new round. We will present methods for using the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol to build your own compliance plan by extracting and updating the contents and relating your compliance activities directly to the questions that might be asked. In this session we will discuss the HIPAA audit and enforcement regulations and processes, and how they apply to HIPAA covered entities and business associates. We will explain the enforcement regulations and the new, increased fines and new penalty levels, including new penalties for willful neglect of compliance that begin at $10,000. We will discuss what information and documentation must be prepared in advance so that you can be ready for an audit at any time, including sample information request forms and questions asked at prior audits. The session will also cover how to know if you may become the subject of an audit or enforcement action, and what you can do to help limit your exposure. We will discuss how most enforcement actions come about and what can be done to prevent incidents that lead to enforcement activity. The HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification regulations (and the recent changes to them) and how they will be audited will be explained. Documentation requirements for compliance will be explored and a framework of security policies necessary

Overview:   Review 6 points of high quality evidence based clinical documentation Review of 7 criteria that all entries in a patient record should include Impact of documentation on coding and claims Impact on audits and ability to defend an audit When an audit is initiated, the completeness of documentation becomes critical in the ability to support what you have reported. Let's take a look at areas in which weaknesses are often found.  Why should you Attend:  The granularity and accuracy of the ICD-10 code set is supported by quality clinical documentation. It is anticipated that payers will increasingly become less flexible in allowing non-specific codes. The use of unspecified codes will likely lead to rejected claims if it is possible to report the more definitive condition. In most cases, unspecified should not be reported unless there is clear evidence to support the inability to report the detailed option.  Is your E & M level supported in the documentation? If you have never experienced scrutiny of your billing patterns by payers and other entities, you may not be aware of weaknesses that lead to recovery of funds or other costly consequences. Your documentation will be key in supporting diagnoses, service codes and acuity of the patient. It is not just payers who engage in audits. Others include State medical boards, Qui Tam and possible reporting of questionable practices by patients. Do your billing patterns and documentation stand up under reporting scrutiny? This presentation will review areas in which you may not be as strong as you think!  Areas Covered in the Session: Significance of abnormal lab results Measurement of lesions, when taken and inclusion of margins Start & stop times & methodology for infusions & discrepancies in billing Diagnostic testing and medications should be supported in a diagnosis Depth of wounds and cause should be clear Severity of illness Diagnosis present on admission? Who Will Benefit: Coders Billers Rev

Overview: Today's health care delivery occurs in a diverse, fast-changing, multidisciplinary health care environment. This often presents challenges to the health care professional that are not easy to navigate. Medical records and their confidentiality have long been the exclusive province of state law, but has now been recognized for some time in the federal HIPAA statutes and federal regulations. Differing and even conflicting sources of requirements at the state level still exist for the retention and disposition of medical records. These sources may vary based upon the specific health care practitioner - whether physicians, dentists, psychologists, or other health care providers, including mental health practitioners. As to the specific, individual health care practitioner, state laws mandate their confidentiality, retention, and even their specific content with regards to patient, clinical records. In addition to these clinical requirements, additional state laws set forth the content and retention of other types of records kept by the professional, such as supervisory agreements with other professionals subordinate to them as well as their own unique record content requirements. With the majority of medical records moving to an electronic format, special rules now exist with regard to the confidentiality, security, retention, and disposition of electronic medical records. This is particularly important as state laws continue to allow for and regulate the provision of telemedicine by various health care practitioners. For example, while psychotherapy and mental health services are ideal treatments to offer over the internet, that is, by simultaneous audio-visual transmission between the doctor and the patient, the risks of breaches of confidentiality also vastly increase. And when the successful doctor-patient relationship is over, how does the health care practitioner providing a mental health service dispose of these electronic records? In addit

Quality Management in Healthcare: Quality management in healthcare is a critical requirement for healthcare organizations. Making quality management patient-centric comes first. Adapting and implementing standards and tools is the next step towards this. Quality management in healthcare is of critical importance to the healthcare industry and the patient. Everyone in the loop -from physicians to practitioners to support staff -needs to be aware of the importance of quality management in healthcare. The most basic purpose of imparting high quality management in healthcare is to make sure that the patient is well taken care of. For this to happen, the healthcare setting has to implement systems and processes. Quality management centers on process management. If organizations have to ensure that meaningful quality management in healthcare is being implemented; they have to adhere to processes. Adapting standards and instilling processes into the healthcare system is how healthcare providers can assure quality in healthcare. Patient is at the center of quality management in healthcare: Obviously, the first step in the direction of implementing quality management in healthcare is to make the healthcare setting's care and processes patient-oriented and patient-centric. Quality management in healthcare begins with the patient and should be fully tuned to her needs. As patients' requirements and expectations vary over time; quality management has to keep upgrading itself to keep up with the changing needs and demands. In line with this, the following means can go a long way in ensuring quality management in healthcare: The healthcare setting has to identify goals for ensuring quality management in healthcare. Each department has to be given measurable goals to reach. Implementing quality standards goes a long way in ensuring that quality management in healthcare is imparted in the organization. Six Sigma, ISO 9001 and ANOVA are some of the popular standards and tools t

Forensic pathology is the application of clinical medical jurisprudence in forensic medicine. A forensic pathology specialist is a physician who has completed a residency in molecular biology, pathology, and related disciplines and has then specialized in forensic pathology as a post-graduate program. The standards for being a "fully certified" forensic pathology specialist vary from state to state. There are also national accreditation programs that offer associates or bachelor's degrees for forensic pathology specialists. Forensic pathology can be applied to a wide range of situations, such as drug and alcohol abuse, homicide and other crimes, sexual assault, and sexual motivation. Forensic pathology specialists can analyze tissue samples to examine for disease, and they use various methods to determine the cause of death, cause of trauma, etc. For instance, gas chromatography is used in the forensic pathology for analyzing fibers on the body. Moreover it also used to analyze blood found at a crime scene. There are many types of forensic pathology, and each type involves different techniques and terminology. Some examples include: pathology of blood and other bodily fluids; pathology of sexually transmitted diseases; pathology of trauma; pathology of forensic genitourinary and obstetric disorders; pathology of traumatic and infectious diseases; pathology of unidentified remains. Read More @ https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/preview/9197580861156902959/6381348933167984177

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