-
As this industry continues to expand and reach new levels of acceptance and opportunities, the need for quality surgeons utilizing our programs grows with it.
-
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) offers a preview of a privacy authorization form that includes the core elements and necessary statements required in the privacy rule of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996.
-
Question: If an employee works out of his or her home, either full-time or part-time (e.g. during maternity leave, on weekends or evenings, or as part of telecommuting job description), do the HIPAA security regulations apply? If so, how do we ensure compliance?
-
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) has reported that the $150 Medicare payment for intraocular lenses (IOLs) is more than the cost of IOLs to surgery centers. OIG recommends that the Medicare payment be reduced in a manner that consider the different types and costs of IOLs.
-
Since 1996, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received reports of more than 110 adverse events related to absorbable hemostatic agents, including 11 that resulted in paralysis or other neural deficits.
-
Old habits are hard to break, and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is asking same-day surgery staff members to break some habits theyve had since nursing and medical school. National Patient Safety Goal No. 2 requires health care organizations to standardize abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols and to develop a list of do-not-use abbreviations.
-
Reports of adverse events, including the death of a cosmetic surgery patient, after administration of propofol by RNs have resulted in a change in anesthesia standards for some organizations accredited by the Gurnee, IL-based American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities (AAAASF).
-
A third option to the Periodic Performance Review (PPR) has been approved by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Earlier this year, Joint Commission created two options to the self-conducted midcycle review for organizations that may be concerned about the discoverability of PPR information shared with the Joint Commission.
-
Although technological advances are responsible for the movement of many surgical procedures from the inpatient to the outpatient setting, sometimes the switch relies more upon the surgeons technique rather than the actual equipment.
-
The recent action by the Florida Board of Medicine to restrict liposuction and abdominoplasty procedures in an office setting may call the safety of liposuction into question. However, the latest liposuction study reports a complication rate of only 3% for 331 cases performed in office-based settings included in the study, according to the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Cares Institute for Quality Improvement (IQI) in Wilmette, IL.
