Regulation & Public Policy

Health plans, their insurers, employer and other sponsors, and business associates should review critically and carefully the adequacy of their current HIPAA Privacy and Security compliance policies, monitoring, training, breach notification and other practices.

In the face of rising enforcement and fines, the Office of Civil Rights' initiation of HIPAA audits and other recent developments, covered entities and their business associates should tighten privacy policies, breach and other monitoring, training and other practices to reduce potential HIPAA exposures.

The most important thing to remember is that when an injury occurs to one of your employees, you need to make sure that they know and understand their right to secure outside treatment but at their own expense.

The unfunded liabilities in Medicare and Social Security represent the real fiscal cliff.

If you have an effective Injury & Illness Prevention Program and training program in place which is well documented and enforced you may be able to effectively defend against an OSHA serious violation. However, the important thing to remember is that proper documentation wins the day.

The overwhelming passage of Senate Bill 863 (De La Torre) in the waning moments of the end of the California legislative session set the workers' compensation community abuzz.

One vehicle to objectively identify work-related injuries is the Electrodiagnostic Functional Assessment Soft Tissue Management baseline program.

The Second District Court of Appeal recently issued their decision on Valdez v. Zurich North America which involves in part, the admissibility of non-Medical Provider Network doctor's reports. It says in part that non-Medical Provider Network diagnosis, treatment and attendant reports which are paid for by the employee are admissible. This article offers one strategy to retain medical control under the Medical Provider Network while at the same time avoiding lengthy litigation over the admissibility of the employee's non-Medical Provider Network doctor's report.