HHS unveils personal health record privacy notice
InformationWeek
The Department of Health and Human Services has unveiled an easy-to-read, standardized template to help consumers to learn more about the privacy and security policies and data practices of PHR products. With the goal of helping PHR companies build greater trust among consumers, the PHR model privacy notice is similar to nutrition labels on foods, in that it simplifies complex information to improve transparency and consumer understanding, HHS officials said. More

9 recommendations for hospital health IT staffing and training
Becker's Hospital Review
While unemployment continues to saturate the nation's working classes, there has been one field within health care where the demand has been higher than the supply: health IT. According to a survey, 61 percent of health care organizations are increasing IT staff this year, the highest rate of any sector among the organizations surveyed. More

Proposed cuts seen as threat to care, jobs
ModernHealthcare.com
President Barack Obama's recommended Medicare and Medicaid cuts issued to the congressional deficit-reduction supercommittee will reduce beneficiaries' access to care and eliminate at least 200,000 jobs over the coming decade, according to a leading hospital advocate. Richard Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, blasted the president's ideas to reduce federal health care spending by $320 billion over 10 years as "the wrong prescription" for national health and employment.More

The vulnerability of sensitive biometric data storage systems
SecurityPark.net
The latest cyberattacks prove "One Time Password" has failed to protect faked "legitimate" access. Biometric storage methods define conditions for individual identification by storing indefeasible characteristics in national, government and private databases. Financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies, governments, intelligence agencies and military worldwide have spent billions of dollars to prevent illegal access to protect critical intellectual property, plans and finances on mainframes, data centers and computers.More

Medicare smartcards aim to thwart fraud, waste
InformationWeek
A small but notably bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced anti-fraud legislation that would create smartcards for Medicare enrollees and providers, a move that sponsors say could save $30 billion a year. The proposed Medicare Common Access Card Act of 2011 would create a series of pilot programs to embed secure chips on Medicare identification cards. If the pilots were to prove successful after a year, the legislation would authorize distribution of smartcards to all beneficiaries of Medicare, currently about 48 million people and counting.More

Practices' clear payment policies let patients know where they stand
American Medical News
The policy of the two-physician Fairfield Avenue Family Practice in Johnstown, Pa., is that if patients don't pay their co-payment, or build up a significant balance due, they will not be seen. But the practice says it has never had to turn away anyone for financial reasons. Patients are well aware of the policy, and the staff sticks to it. In the same way that good fences make good neighbors, experts say good payment policies that are reasonably enforced mean that physicians and medical practice staff almost never will have to tell a patient "no" because of money.More

PwC: Health industry underprepared to protect privacy
Healthcare Finance News
A new report from PwC's Health Research Institute, indicates most health organizations aren't properly prepared to protect patient privacy and secure personal health information. Old privacy and security controls no longer suffice to comply with existing privacy laws and patient consent agreements, say PwC officials — who emphasize that health organizations need to update practices and adopt a more integrated approach to ensure that patient information doesn't fall into the wrong hands.More

Insurers and Medicare supply claims data to produce realistic cost picture
Healthcare Finance News
Four major health plans will supply claims information, along with some from Medicare, representing more than $1 trillion of health care treatment and services over the past 11 years to a database so researchers can analyze it and root out what the primary drivers of costs and utilization are. Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente and United Healthcare will furnish access on a regular basis to the Health Care Cost Institute to the plans' data, which has been scrubbed of its identification properties. The institute, a newly created nonprofit, will conduct health research with the claims information. More

CMS lends ICD-10 transition hand
HealthImaging
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has released an ICD-10 transition guide. ICD-10 requirements go into effect Oct. 1, 2013. According to the guide, ICD-10 is for all physicians, providers and suppliers submitting claims to Medicare contractors for services provided to Medicare beneficiaries.More

Unhealthy workers bloat hospital budgets
HealthLeaders Media
Who hasn't heard a story, whether apocryphal or not, about the chain-smoking doctor or the 350-lb. nurse? These types exist, but of course, those random samples obviously aren't representative of the group—are they? Maybe they're a little closer to the truth than realized. It seems that hospital workers are among the unhealthiest of all. A new Thomson Reuters Healthcare study says that hospital workers not only are generally sicker than the general population, but that they spend about 10 percent more on health care services and consume more of those services.More