After leaving an acute-care hospital, patients are often unable to return home and manage their own care. They may need to transition through a post-acute care provider such as a nursing home or an in-patient rehabilitation facility. The patient may need a long-term...
Health Care
How to appeal a Medicare contract revocation
Revocation of Medicare and Medicaid contracts can significantly damage your practice and affect your ability to operate in your field. It is crucial to understand your appeal rights to avoid the potential issues that can result from revocation. The initial steps of a...
What are the most common HIPAA violations?
When you run your own medical practice, you have a lot of responsibilities to ensure your practice operates effectively and meets all its legal obligations. As part of that, you need to protect your patient’s privacy and health care records, complying with Health...
Do not use a family member as an interpreter
In a pinch, it can be very tempting to grab the nearest family member to help interpret for a patient. You can tell yourself "it is ok to do it this once" or "the patient's child speaks English" but in reality, this is a practice that should be avoided at all costs....
The Stark Law: a basic overview of a complex statute
For a physician, navigating regulation and compliance is vital to operating a successful practice. By adhering to the correct legal guidelines, you can alleviate much of the anxiety and risk that comes with a failure to comply. Certain laws and regulations--such as...
Provider Implications of the Texas Telemedicine Policy
All over the United States, the telemedicine sector of healthcare has grown into an important component of medical treatment. It offers choice, convenience and access to consumers while paring down overhead and easing staffing stress.Now that Texas is a telemedicine...
Difficult patient issues perplex every provider
Providers report an increased number of problems with challenging patients.These are the patients, or their family members, who become angry, raise their voices and make up their minds early in the interaction that you are not competent, or you are disrespecting them,...