Roger Steven's Blog – August 2017 Archive (5)

Protected Health Information (PHI) is a very valuable piece of information. It is valuable for the patient, for the healthcare provider, and for the insurer. Unfortunately, there is one source to which it is more valuable than to all these: Hackers. Protected Health Information is meant to be protected, but this information is coveted in the black market more than credit cards and social security.

The reason is simple: The PHI contains very vital, but confidential information about a…

The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), a federal Act that governs the way in which physicians need to be paid when they treat patients who come to them under Medicare, alters and replaces the earlier Act in this regard, namely the Balanced Budget Act, which was in force from 1997.  

Since the Balanced Budget Act linked physician payments to budget cuts and economic growth; it brought down physician payments by 21 percent. MACRA, on the other hand, introduces…

Perhaps no educational campus is free of students with some or another kind of mental or emotional issues. Considering the wide diversity of students that enroll into American colleges and the varied backgrounds they come from; it is no surprise that American colleges will have to deal with such students.

There is a need for institutions that come across students with emotional or mental issues to learn to deal with the issue. While on the one hand, administrators of educational…

The medical profession is different from most others in one vital aspect: Practitioners of this profession don’t retire. The profession allows the physician to continue for as long as her physical and mental faculties allow her to. The US’ Supreme Court judges too, don’t retire, but theirs is judicial service, during which they are paid by the government, while a…

Most healthcare providers or organizations that are described as Covered Entities by HIPAA, engage vendors as HIPAA Business Associates for carrying out many of their services on their behalf. HIPAA defines a Business Associate as a person or an entity who carries out some or all functions or activities that involve the use or disclosure of Protected Health Information on behalf of, or of providing services to a…