The 10 Biggest Penalties for HIPAA Violations
It’s been more than 25 years since the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was enacted. Since the compliance date of HIPAA’s Privacy Rule in April 2003, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has...
Patient Engagement isn’t Just Luck. It’s Strategy.
The healthcare industry is fraught with a lot of buzzwords and jargon. There are so many acronyms — EMR, ACA, AMA, HHS, HIPAA, etc. — that it can be difficult to remember them all! A term bandied about often in healthcare over the past few years is patient...
How to Combat Challenges With COVID-19 Test Results Delivery
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released and distributed the first test for COVID-19 diagnosis — the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel — in February 2020. Since then, the United States has conducted more...
Pharmacy’s Role in Patient Engagement: Leveraging a Resource Used Two Times More Than Medical Offices
In healthcare, providers’ strategy to contain costs and enhance quality, value-based care is an essential component. And, as healthcare shifts from fee-for-service to value-based care, the demand for patient engagement has never been greater. In fact, more than half...
The Healthcare Workforce Shortage: Requiring Hospitals, Health Systems and Physician Practices to Optimize Existing Resources
The United States healthcare industry employs approximately 22 million individuals and accounts for roughly 15 percent of all of the nation’s workers. That figure includes more than one million professionally-active physicians, almost 4.2 million registered nurses...
Exclusive Webinar Preview: Solve COVID Results Delivery Challenges with Secure Texting
COVID-19 testing has played a critical role in the pandemic as our first line of defense against the pandemic in the beginning. The monumental demand for rapid testing resulted in a litany of obstacles for providers, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers. The...
Telehealth Beyond the Virtual Visit
Patient volumes are near 2019 levels for many healthcare providers, even as they continue to be impacted by waves of COVID-19 cases due to newly emerging variants. Some of the approximately 40 percent of Americans who delayed medical care during the height of the...
Digital Healthcare: Automating Administrative Workflows to Reduce Burnout and Address Staffing Shortages
In its Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century report, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) listed one of its "Aims for Improvement" as healthcare being efficient. In summary, the goal of this efficiency is reducing waste and...
HIPAA Compliance: Keeping Patient Data Secure While Conducting Patient Outreach
The healthcare industry wasn’t always considered a primary target for cybercrime. However, the rapid emergence and adoption of technology by providers along with the vast amounts of protected health information (PHI) they’re required to handle have resulted in it...
Eight Recent Regulatory Changes for COVID-19 Vaccine and Testing Mandates: What Healthcare Providers Should Know
A lot has happened in the United States since early September. In the entertainment world, Jamie Spears was suspended and subsequently removed as the conservator for his daughter, Brittany. In politics, California Governor Gavin Newsom won the recall election to...
Patient Portals: A Valuable Tool For Improving Patient Engagement
Just a couple years ago, many healthcare providers cited artificial intelligence and machine learning as key areas of focus for their organizations. Now, the emphasis has shifted to patient engagement. More than half of healthcare chief information officers (CIOs)...
Delayed Treatment, Screenings and Care Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Healthcare Provider Guide
Lack of health insurance and high costs have long been major factors limiting access to healthcare in the United States. In 2019, a record 25 percent of Americans reported that they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition because of the...
