Web-Tones

Bill Clinton: It's 5 minutes 2 midnight for health care in America!

It's 5 minutes 2 midnight (read to bottom of post): This video shows Bill Clinton at his best. He simply has no living equal when it comes to getting at the heart of the matter on a policy question. Here's the $$ quote (paraphrasing):

Historically, everyone that has ever bet against America has been wrong. Why? Because we always knew when it was five minutes to midnight and managed to make the right decision.

This is Clinton's riff from a famous quote by Winston Churchill (again paraphrasing):

Americans always find a way to do the right thing, after exhausting every other possible alternative.

I wouldn't bet against America on healthcare, not because of some US government takeover of the health care system (a meme that is pure fiction), but rather because we STILL HAVE the most resilient entrepreneurial economy that the planet has ever known. I have written often about how American health care entrepreneurs will rise to the occasion and that we are going to innovate our way out of this health care mess. Why? Because 16% of GDP is unsustainable and we will bankrupt the future of our children and our grandchildren if we don't fix it. 

I was recently asked at a conference Q&A session if the EHR incentives of the HITECH Act would provide enough of an ROI to get providers to move? My long answer was NO. But if laggard providers don't believe that nimble competitors at this very moment are plotting their demise, then they don't understand that this is not your daddy's health care industry any longer, and yes it's 5 minutes to midnight and a bet against American ingenuity is a losing bet.

Looking for a best of breed HIPAA Training?

To stay current on the HITECH Act and its quickly changing regulatory scheme visit the HITECH Survival Guide website and/or sign up for our free monthly compliance newsletter. Also, check out our FREE EHR Checklist.

If you need tools that will help with your compliance initiatives then check out the HSG Store. Do you need an Internet Lawyer with HITECH / HIPAA experience?

 

HHS & Meaningful Use: Innovation Happens!

HHS now has a subsection of its website dedicated to "meaningful use (MU)." We just presented at the WHIT World Healthcare Congress and will be posting our talk and slides shortly. Part of what we covered is our definition of MU. This is a term of art that has gone through two rounds of public comment with CMS/ONC expected to issue a "blessed version" in first quarter 2010.

The controversy surrounding MU will continue, but if the vendors displaying their wares at the WHIT Conference are a harbinger of things to come, and we believe they are, then innovation is increasing at alarming rate, and those providers that choose to remain on the sidelines waiting for the US Government to clarify every last term in the HITECH Act are going to get their "clocks cleaned" by more nimble competitors.

Some providers (perhaps many) are going to resist, but it doesn't matter anymore, the relentless push of the marketplace will force change. Health care, as a whole, simply cannot remain the uber laggard. Why? Because a large enough percentage of providers will find ways to innovate, stimulus package or no stimulus package, and these providers will change the rules of the game. IBM thought it would never happen to them. Ditto MS. Does any one really believe that time will stand still for the health care industry? NO industry gets a free pass on this train. None.

Looking for a best of breed HIPAA Training?

To stay current on the HITECH Act and its quickly changing regulatory scheme visit the HITECH Survival Guide website and/or sign up for our free monthly compliance newsletter. Also, check out our FREE EHR Checklist.

If you need tools that will help with your compliance initiatives then check out the HSG Store. Do you need an Internet Lawyer with HITECH / HIPAA experience?

 

HHS: New Sheriff in Town?

On October 30, 2009 HHS issued the following release:

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued an interim final rule today to conform the enforcement regulations promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to currently effective statutory revisions made pursuant to the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, which was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

In this interim final rule, published today in the Federal Register, HHS amends HIPAA’s enforcement regulations that relate to the imposition of civil money penalties to incorporate the HITECH Act’s categories of violations, tiered ranges of civil money penalty amounts, and revised limitations on the Secretary’s authority to impose civil money penalties for established violations of HIPAA’s Administrative Simplification Rules.  This interim final rule does not make amendments with respect to those enforcement provisions of the HITECH Act that are not yet effective under the applicable statutory provisions.  This interim final rule is effective 30 days after today.   

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If you are trying to follow along with the maze of HITECH's effective dates I suggest that you start here. HHS's Interim Final Rule ("IFR"), in general, relates to HITECH Section 13410-Improved Enforcement. The bottom line is that the "new Sheriff" has far more authority under HITECH to impose more stringent civil fines. Couple that with, among other things, HITECH fines returning to HHS' Office of Civil Rights coffers and you have a dramatically altered HITECH/HIPAA regulatory landscape. The full text of the IFR can be found here, along with HHS' commentary regarding same. If you want to review the sections of the Social Security Act that HITECH 13410 revises click here.

Looking for a best of breed HIPAA Compliance Tracking System?

To stay current on the HITECH Act and its quickly changing regulatory scheme visit the HITECH Survival Guide website and/or sign up for our free monthly compliance newsletter. Also, check out our FREE EHR Checklist.

If you need tools that will help with your compliance initiatives then check out the HSG Store. Do you need an Internet Lawyer with HITECH / HIPAA experience?