ALL ABOUT ICD-10
Many people are wondering what ICD-10 is and how implementation will affect their medical coding careers. The fact is that nearly every country except the United States is already using ICD-10. ICD 9 was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the 1970s. ICD-10 was developed by WHO in 1993, and most countries adopted it very quickly. So the question, is why do we need a new book? The answer is simply that ICD 9 has run out of room! With advances in medical technologies and science, there are more new diagnoses every time which the current system cannot document.
The Department of Health and Human Services has stated that implementation of ICD-10 in the US is scheduled for October 2013. Some coding students are worried because some entities are pushing training for ICD-10 now. The AAPC doesn’t recommend that coders start training at present for ICD-10 for several reasons. The main reason is that one tends to forget what is not in practice immediately. At the moment, coding students need to learn ICD 9 coding because that is the system in current use right now. A few months before ICD-10 is implemented, most good programs and organizations will have seminars, webinars, etc to train on how to code with the new book. Coding procedure will scarcely change, therefore, the transition is quite easy.
Many coders and coding students ask how ICD-10 will be different from ICD-9. Well, the key difference is: A) ICD-10 will have more codes than ICD-9. B) Since ICD-9 codes are mostly numeric, ICD-10 codes will be alpha-numeric; in fact, ICD-10 will have up to 7 alpha-numeric digits as compared to 5 numeric digits in ICD-9. Lastly, ICD-10 will have an upgrade of up to 141,000 codes, compared to 17,000 in ICD-9.
Right now, students who want to learn medical coding will need to learn ICD 9 and CPT coding conventions. Medical coding procedures and conventions will remain pretty standard between ICD 9 and ICD-10. The skill set will transfer easily. There will be coding seminars, webinars, etc available through professional coding organizations and schools.
THE HITECH ACT AND HIPAA – WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR IT PROFESSIONALS?
The Health Information Technology for Economic & Clinical Health (HITECH) act really does ‘up the ante’ for HIPAA enforcement. In theory, health organizations have had to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) since its introduction in 1996. Originally, HIPAA was introduced by congress to protect the health insurance rights of employees made redundant. Additional ‘Titles’ to the act were introduced including ‘Title 2’ which was designed to protect electronically stored data relating to patient health information – often referred to as ‘Protected Health Information’ (PHI).
The Health Information Technology for Economic & Clinical Health (HITECH) act really does ‘up the ante’ for HIPAA enforcement.
In theory Health organizations have had to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) since its introduction in 1996. Originally HIPAA was introduced by congress to protect the health insurance rights of employees made redundant. Additional ‘Titles’ to the act were introduced including ‘Title 2’ which was designed to protect electronically stored data relating to patient health information – often referred to as ‘Protected Health Information’ (PHI)
The problem with HIPAA has been the broad interpretation adopted by many healthcare providers and insurers. In fact, many providers require the waiver of HIPPA rights as a condition of service. This has undoubtedly resulted in a varying degree of adoption among providers leaving many unsure as to whether they are or are not considered compliant. But how could you blame them? The requirements aren’t specific and there has been little enforcement to speak of.
The HITECH act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aims to change all that with increased penalties for non-compliance.
A breach that exposes a patient’s confidential data could have serious and lasting consequences. Unlike credit cards, for example, which can be cancelled and changed if they are exposed – health care records can’t just be changed or re-set. According to data from Forrester Research, criminals are increasingly targeting health care organizations. For security teams within health organizations, HITECH’s increased penalties may well assist in the justification of funding needed to sure up security and compliance projects that otherwise may have languished under the previously ambivalent and poorly defined HIPAA enforcement.
It is open to debate as to how the federal government will audit compliance with HIPAA’s security requirements from here on in, but it widens the number of enforcers by giving State Attorney General’s the ability to file federal civil action for harmful disclosures of protected health information (PHI).
There are already cases of lawsuits underway for alleged HIPAA violations due to exposed or breached PHI, likely to end with heavy financial compensation payments being ordered.
Some Good News…
Like all things in life there’s usually a process to follow and HIPAA and HITECH are no different. The main headings that will need to be addressed are:
Administrative Safeguards – specifically written evidence of measures adopted to ensure compliance. Internal auditing, in particular, change management processes, approvals and documentation to provide evidence that systems and process is properly governed.
Physical Safeguards – including access controls, restrict and control access to equipment containing PHI information. This will include the use of Firewalls, Intrusion Protection technology and with particular focus on workstation, mobile/remote worker security
Technical Safeguards – Configuration ‘hardening’, to ensure that known threats and vulnerabilities are eliminated from all systems with a zealous patch management process combined with anti-virus technology, regularly tested and verified as secure. Strong monitoring for security incidents and events, with all event logs being securely retained is also a key measure to safeguard IT system security.
In fact, the scope of the standard is quite similar in respect of its approach and its measures to the PCIDSS (The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), which is another security standard all healthcare providers will now be familiar with. The PCIDSS is concerned with the secure governance of Payment Card data, and any ‘card merchant’ i.e. an organization handling payment card transactions.
Therefore, it makes sense to consider measures for HIPAA compliance in the context of PCIDSS also, since the same technology that helps deliver HIPAA compliance should be relevant for PCIDSS. Or to put it another way – compliance with one will significantly assist compliance with the other.
What do you need to do as an IT Service Provider to your Organization?
A number of automated ‘compliance auditing’ solutions are available that typically provide the following functions:
Compliance Auditing (AKA Device Hardening) – typically, ‘out of the box’ as well as ‘made to order’ reports allow you to quickly test critical security settings for servers & desktops, network devices and firewalls. The best solutions will provide details on your administrative procedures, technical data, security services, and technical security mechanisms. Generally, these reports will probably identify some security gaps to begin with. Once repaired though, you can generate these reports again to prove to auditors that your servers are compliant. Using inbuilt change tracking you can ensure systems remains compliant.
Change Tracking – once your firewalls, servers, workstations, switches, routers etc are all in a compliant state you need to ensure they remain so. The only way to do this is to routinely verify the configuration settings have not changed because unplanned, undocumented changes will always be made while somebody has the admin rights to do so! We will alert when any unplanned changes are detected to the firewall, or any other network device within your ‘Compliant Infrastructure’.
Planned Change Audit Trail – when changes do need to be made to a device then you need to ensure that changes are approved and documented – we make this easy and straightforward, reconciling all changes made with the RFC or Change Approval record.
Device ‘Hardening’ must be enforced and audited. A good compliance auditing solution will provide automated templates for a hardened (secured & compliant) configuration for servers, desktops and network devices to show where work is needed to get compliant, and thereafter, will track all planned and unplanned changes that affect the hardened status of your infrastructure. The state of the art in compliance auditing software covers registry keys and values, file integrity, service and process whitelisting/blacklisting, user accounts, installed software, patches, access rights, password ageing and much more.
Event Log Management – All event logs from all devices must be analyzed, filtered, correlated and escalated appropriately. Event log messages must be stored in a secure, integrity-assured repository for the required retention period for any governance policy.
Correlation of Security Information & Audit Logs – in addition, you should implement Log Gathering from all devices with correlation capabilities for security event signature identification and powerful ‘mining’ and analysis capabilities. This provides a complete ‘compliance safety net’ to ensure, for example to name just a few, virus updates complete successfully, host intrusion protection is enabled at all times, firewall rules are not changed, user accounts , rights and permissions are not changed without permission.
Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR: All NewNetTechnologies software solutions are built using the latest technology, which means they can be fully adapted to suit all business environments. For more information on HIPAA compliance view our software solutions on www.newnettechnologies.com which provide 100% of the features you need but at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.
HOLIDAY SPENDING
Many people feel stressed out over the holidays due to financial constraints and depression. It is the time of year that brings memories of the past. Those who have lost loved ones may feel especially down at Christmas.
We at Meditec wish you and your family a very blessed holiday season. These are some ideas to keep holiday spending in control and to lift your spirits:
Spending:
- Try to avoid the use of credit cards to pay for gifts.
- Plan to stick within your gift-giving budget.
- Inexpensive heartfelt gifts are sometimes the very best. Think of baked items served in pretty holiday tins. Making a loved one a cookbook with recipes you’ve found online and have bound in a pretty binder for them. Handmade items like slippers, scarves, Christmas ornaments, etc are always appreciated.
- If you have a very large family, maybe suggesting picking names for gift giving would assist all family members to feel less stressed out.
- Set limits with your children. Help them to understand the true meaning of the holiday.
- Buy simple heartfelt gifts.
- Use dollar stores.
- Candles, comfy slippers, warm gloves- are all great Christmas gift ideas.
Depression:
- Allow yourself to process through your feelings.
- Spend time with friends or relatives.
- Visit a nursing home and bring some magazines or holiday baked items to share.
- Visit an animal shelter and bring treats for the homeless animals
- Volunteer some time at a local homeless shelter or domestic violence shelter. Cheering someone else up is a sure way to make yourself feel better.
- If you are feeling lonely, plan some activities during the holiday season. Go see a good movie, or rent some comedies to watch.
- Now is the perfect time to adopt a pet from the pound. You’d be saving a life and would have a lifelong friend!
- Reach out to others. Talk about how you are feeling.
- Find a group to join: local church, local book club at your public library, an exercise group.
Remember, the true meaning of the holiday has little to do with going broke. So, keep the gifts small and simple, and put the joy back into Christmas. Focus on friends, family, doing something for others. It’s not about how much you spend. Also, look around you for those who seem alone, and invite them to celebrate the holiday with you.
Meditec has started weekly “office hours” with our instructors. These are available via our online classroom to respond to questions for the following programs: Medical Transcription Medical Coding Medical Billing Paralegal Legal Transcription Get your questions answered in real time by one of our qualified and experienced instructors.
INTERESTING WEB SITES
Medical transcriptionists, medical coders, medical billers, and paralegals all use the Internet at times for research. When we find an interesting website, we will list it here. It is suggested that Meditec students and new graduates keep an organized list of reference links in a MS Word document or Excel file for easy and quick access.
http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz4508452c228.html Fun Medical Terminology Quizzes!
RECIPE FOR DECEMBER
Six Cup Salad
1 cup drained pineapple chunks
1 cup maraschino cherries
1 cup mandarin oranges drained
1 cup sour cream
1 cup marshmallows
1 cup shredded coconut
Mix together. Chill in refrigerator for an hour before serving. If you want more, just add ½ to 1 cup to each ingredient. Enjoy!
HOLIDAY FUNNY
What did Adam say on the day before Christmas?
It’s Christmas, Eve!
Excerpted from: http://www.theholidayspot.com/christmas/jokes/christmasevejokes.htm
