Tips to Become an Empowered Patient

Patient empowerment could have lots of definition, however, the most amount of emphasis is placed on the basic concept that patients are taking active roles in their individual disease management all the while supporting active participation with learning more about the diseases and conditions along with the treatment options available to them.

In order to become an empowered patient, one should do the following things:

Take Responsibility

One needs to realize that they themselves know their body a lot better than others, and they should accordingly refer to all the resources that at their disposal – from people to words printed – and they need to use this knowledge to make better decisions when it comes to treatment options. Also, it would be great if you make sure that there’s a healthcare compliance program at place, at the institution you are getting your treatment at, to ensure quality healthcare. And if one is having a hard time in understanding any of the aspects of the whole process, then they may seek advice from an expert in healthcare law Las Vegas.

Set Goals

One needs to understand the fact that our body does not react always the same way that one would expect it to, suggests an expert in healthcare law Las Vegas. It’s therefore better to set certain treatment goals and then work towards the goal that you set. For example, you may have had set a goal to swiftly heal, and an another person might just want to be able to manage his/her disease or condition, and there might be someone else who needs to just accept the condition that he/she is in and learn to better cope with all the new problems.

What Does A Healthcare Lawyer Do?

Healthcare law focuses primarily on the legislative, judicial, and executive rules & regulations governing the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry includes the hospitals, hospital systems, clinics, solo medical practitioners, and other healthcare providers such as nursing homes, acute care center, and psychiatric centers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, private and public insurers, etc. Some regulations that are relevant to the healthcare industry include, HIPAA, Stark, EMTALA, Anti-Kickback Statute, and other state privacy laws.

Healthcare lawyers generally represent the clients in the healthcare industry where cases are in connection with various general corporate matters such as corporate organizations, employee benefits, antitrust issues, tax, general contract negotiation, and capital financing. In addition to all this, healthcare lawyer Las Vegas often provide their advice on physician recruitments, medical staff relationship matters, and acquisition of healthcare practices. Healthcare lawyers provide guidance in relation with Medicaid investigations, Medicare fraud, payment issues, insurance regulation, HMO, health reform issues, and telemedicine. Finally, healthcare lawyers also address risk management, confidentiality, informed consent, and bio-ethical issues which include end-of-life decision-making, healthcare decision-making, and assisted reproduction.

Healthcare lawyers generally represent healthcare providers in front of state and federal agencies which regulate the healthcare industry. Healthcare lawyers assist healthcare providers in regards to various types of legal litigations, which include medical malpractice, Medicaid investigations, abuse and fraud claims, antitrust issues, intellectual property matters, breach of contract issues, real estate issues, labor & employment disputes, and Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements matters. A lot of healthcare lawyers often work for some of the other law firms which has departments specializing in healthcare law.

Why Organizations Tend to Neglect Healthcare Compliance

Healthcare information could be highly sensitive in nature and people in general expect the healthcare providers to place great emphasis and importance on safeguarding the healthcare data of their patients. So, what is the reason behind so many providers seemingly slacking off?

Healthcare providers hold large database containing sensitive data on their patients – it includes information that sometimes even the patients don’t know about themselves. If this sensitive data falls into wrong hands, it could have adverse effects – it could provide the criminals with all the necessary data to commit identity theft and/or fraud. This is the reason why there are some strict rules & regulations known as PHI or Protected Health Information. The healthcare lawyer Las Vegas suggest that PHI is meant to give guidelines to healthcare providers on how to protect this sensitive healthcare data. In the US, a similar set of rules & regulations is known as HIPAA.

There are two main reasons why healthcare providers and organizations tend to neglect healthcare compliance:

Lack of resources

The IT department of the healthcare industry isn’t known to be very well-funded always. At the same time, the IT personnel as well as administrators in the healthcare industry are often made to do more with less. The IT departments at the healthcare industry are often understaffed, underpaid, and under- utilized.

They just don’t know better

Sometimes, it’s all about ignorance – they simply don’t know or haven’t made themselves aware about the measures that need to be followed in order to be compliant to the healthcare law and to avoid Medicaid investigations. And they know about it only when it is too late.

Ensuring Protection of PHI When Using Mobile Devices

Similar to laptops and computers, the default settings on anyone’s mobile devices could be unsecure and therefore prone to breach. And this makes it all the more important to ensure that mobile devices are configured properly as well as secured thoroughly, especially if that mobile devices are to be used for creation, maintenance, transmit, or for receiving ePHI.

It is very important that people understand how unsafe and unsecure it could be to use public Wi-Fi like that provided in the coffee shops or airports. It is important that one uses secure file sharing services or cloud storage on such devices. The regulatory compliance services could help your better in understanding how one can protect PHI when they use mobile devices.

Here are a few tips as per healthcare compliance Las Vegas  that healthcare providers may follow for securing PHI on their mobile devices:

·         Implementation of HIPAA policies as well as procedure regarding how the mobile devices need to be used in healthcare workplace, especially when it is being used for creation, to receive, to maintain, or transmit ePHI.

·         Require proper authentication every time the mobile device is unlocked.

·         Install as well as enable automatic lock and/or logoff functionality.

·         Regularly update and install security patches as well as latest updates.

·         Install and enable anti-malware and/or anti-virus encryption, software, and remote wiping capabilities.

·         Consider using those Mobile Device Management or MDM software that are help make mobile devices more secure and easy to manage.

·         Use internet connection only from authorized and secure sources.

Why Firms Tend to Neglect the Costs of Healthcare Compliance

Healthcare data are some of the most sensitive information, and people always expect the healthcare providers - such as hospitals, medical centers and clinics – to place great care and importance into making sure that their personal and medical data is kept safe and secure. So why is the case so that many firms seem to simply slack it off?

Healthcare providers hold a huge amount of sensitive data about patients – this data includes, sometimes, things that even the patients themselves don’t know. When and if this data falls into the possession of wrong people, this could be very bad as it can give a criminal with all the necessary data that they need to commit certain fraud or medical identity theft, suggests the healthcare lawyer Las Vegas. This the reason why there’s a set of strict rules & regulations at place known as the Protected Health Information or PHI, around protection of sensitive healthcare data. In the US, these set of rules are called HIPAA.

Every kind of healthcare entities and providers need to have a proper healthcare compliance program at place. Non-compliance of HIPAA norms could lead to high cost to the firm in the form of penalties amounting up to $50,000, in an event of breach taking place. Still, it is astounding that a huge number of healthcare providers continue to be non-compliant. Lack of resources is often one of the reasons why this happens and sometimes it is just that they just don’t know any better. 

Why Firms Often Neglect the Cost of Healthcare Compliance

Healthcare data include very sensitive and personal information about the patients, and people expect that healthcare entities such as hospitals and clinics will do all it takes to keep the data safe and secure. So, why does it seem like a lot of them simply slack off?

Healthcare entities have a lot of sensitive data about their patients, and this data may include things that often the patients themselves aren’t aware of themselves. And if this kind of sensitive data comes to fall into hands of the wrong people, that could be really problematic, as it may give criminals access to the data, they would need to commit identity theft and fraud. That’s exactly why there are certain rules and regulations at the place, known as PHI or Protected Health Information, and it there for the protection of such data. In the US, this set of regulations and rules is known as HIPAA, meant for healthcare compliance Las Vegas and in the US.

It is necessary for all healthcare entities to have healthcare compliance programs. And non-compliance of HIPAA can be very costly, suggests the Healthcare Lawyer Las Vegas. Yet, a large number of healthcare organizations choose to be non-complaint. The following are two main reasons behind this:

Lack of Resources

Healthcare IT isn’t known to be very well-funded. And still, the IT personnel in the Healthcare sector are made to work more for less. This leads to healthcare IT being under-satisfied and under-utilized.

They don’t really know any better

Improper storage of healthcare data isn’t the only reason why non-compliance and breach occur. In some cases, the organizations themselves don’t seem to even realize what they are doing wrong. 

How to Use Social Media Safely in Your Healthcare Practice

While healthcare practitioners and organizations should be careful of the potential dangers of using social media carelessly while sharing information, its positive impacts on the success of a medical practice cannot be ignored as well. If used in an appropriate manner, social media can be very beneficial for your healthcare organization while continuing to maintain patient privacy and confidentiality.

Communicate with patients

You can effectively use social media, in accordance to healthcare compliance Las Vegas obviously, as a great tool to communicate general information about your medical practice, such as office policies, websites, availability, and appointment scheduling. Social media can be a great platform to provide patients with direct links to secure websites where the patients can log in securely and have access to their information.

Educate your patients

Healthcare organizations can also use social media to effectively educate their patients on the conditions and diseases that are treated on the facility, procedures performed, emerging technology, events in news, and medical symptoms. Pictures of your medical staff and physicians and their pictures can also be shared to better connect with their patients. Educating patients on healthcare policies can also help prevent Medicare investigations.

Interact with your patients

While internet isn’t a great platform for sharing private information, social media can be utilized for general Question & Answer type conversations. There are some medical practices who have successfully set up specific scheduled hours for answering questions asked by patients on social media and official websites. If a medical practice is receiving high traffic on their social media handle, they may consider designating a staff member to respond to the postings, comments and questions.