HHS Announces Culpability Limits for HIPAA Violations, Drops Annual Fines Owed by Providers

Clinical laboratories need to understand how their patients’ protected health information is being used and secured by vendors to avert data breaches and HHS penalties Most readers of The Dark Report, the sister publication to the Dark Daily, are aware that more than 24-million clinical laboratory patients had their protected health information (PHI) stolen during several recent data breaches involving multiple medical laboratory companies. The first public statements made by clinical lab...

DOJ Pursues Organizations That Falsely Claim Compliance with Medicare’s EHR Incentive Programs

Clinical laboratories that interface with hospital EHR systems under scrutiny by the DOJ could be drawn into the investigations Officials at the federal US Department of Justice (DOJ) continue to pursue fraud cases involving health systems that allegedly have falsely attested to complying with the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) adoption incentive programs (now known as the Promoting Interoperability Programs). This is important for clinical laboratory leaders to watch,...

CMS Finalizes Rule Rebranding ‘Meaningful Use’ Program to ‘Promoting Interoperability’

Ongoing federal regulatory push for EHR interoperability requires medical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups to have strategies for ensuring seamless interfaces with providers and hospitals What difference does a name make? Clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups soon may know the answer to that question following the renaming of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) “Meaningful Use” program to “Promoting Interoperability” (PI). CMS first announced the...

University of Michigan Study Predicts that Majority of Physician Practices Will Lose Money on their EHR Systems

Research study shows opportunity for clinical laboratories to help client physicians get more value from their electronic health record systems For the majority of physicians in the United States, implementation of an electronic health record (EHRs) system in their practice may turn out to be a money-losing proposition. That is one prediction made by researchers at the University of Michigan (UM), based on a study they conducted. Among other things, these findings indicate that progressive...

Six Health IT Companies Join Forces to Develop Interoperable EHR Systems to Better Compete Against Epic’s EHR Product

CommonWell is the name of the new organization formed to create the interoperability that would enable universal access to each patient’s health care records It was big news in the healthcare IT world when six major healthcare IT companies joined together on March 4 and announced a collaboration intended to develop electronic health record (EHR) systems that are interoperable. That is a goal that can come none too soon for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups. The collaboration...
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