I don’t want to use this blog as a pulpit against social media or smart phones, but it is sometimes hard to believe the things people do. It is like the minute some people have a phone in their hand, all sense of reasonableness or rational thought goes out the window. In the world of…
A good friend that I run with on a regular basis gave me a sticker the other day that said “Comfort is a slow death – Do hard stuff” (except he used a more adult word than “stuff”). As I was putting that sticker on a water bottle it struck me that this philosophy is…
You have probably heard the saying that a windshield is large, and a rearview mirror is small so you should spend your time looking forward rather than living in the past. While that is great life advice, it isn’t always applicable in the world of compliance. Every compliance program should have goals and desired objectives…
Over the weekend I volunteered at a 100 mile trail race. Yes, people signed up and paid money to run 100 miles on a very hard course. The race consisted of five 20 mile loops over a route that had hundreds of railroad tie stairs, climbs up bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, rocks, roots and…
A featured speaker at this year’s CP-HIPAASolutions HIPAA Forum is FBI Special Agent Jeff Huber who is an expert in cybersecurity, and all the ways the “bad guys” work to gain access to very valuable personally identifiable information. In the world of health care, the protected health information providers have on their computer networks, and…
There is no dispute that staffing is the number one concern of every health care provider right now. Most organizations can’t find enough people to work, so senior leadership is being forced to take a much more active role in providing direct care. The burnout factor is sky high, and sometimes it feels like there…
I am currently serving as the Interim Compliance Officer for a client with a pretty sophisticated electronic health record. This client has been without a formal compliance officer for a while so the compliance program is in need of some attention. One of the first things I was asked to do was conduct an access…
By now, every provider should have the infrastructure of a compliance program in place. The seven elements of an effective compliance program are well publicized and there are numerous resources available to providers for building a program. But, building a compliance program, putting policies and procedures in place, naming a compliance officer and having a…
Many of the people who read this blog work for small health care providers, often in rural areas, that don’t have resources to invest in the latest technology and security measures. Often, when asked why the IT system has not been updated, the response is, “we are small, the bad guys are after bigger fish.”…
I heard someone say they expected people to “summer hard” this year since no one could do much of anything last summer. From what I have seen so far, those words are very true. It seems the highways are busier, the lakes are buzzing with more people, boats, and jet skis than ever before, and…