Form 990 Redesign for Tax Year 2008

The IRS currently requires every charitable organization, and every similar tax-exempt organization, with gross receipts of at least $100,000 or assets of at least $250,000 to file an annual return on Form 990. On December 20, 2007, the IRS published major changes to its Form 990. Certain of the changes…

Gainsharing is generally defined as an arrangement between physicians and hospitals to share cost reductions, which can be narrowly targeted projects such as standardization of hospital equipment and supplies or broadly targeted projects such as average cost per case. Gainsharing is an attempt to align financial incentives in an environment where the existing incentives are actually…

The NPI is here.  The NPI is now.  Are you using it?

Industry-Wide Enforcement of the NPI Compliance Date

 The compliance date for the NPI for all HIPAA covered entities except small health plans was May 23, 2007.  (Small health plans have until May 23, 2008 to comply.)  In guidance provided on April 2, 2007, …

On December 6, 2007 HealthLeaders News reported that the Federal government has established a one year contract with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to conduct security audits on covered entities to verify compliance with the HIPAA security rule. 
Continue Reading ARE YOU PREPARED FOR A HIPAA SECURITY AUDIT?

During the period of October 2005 through September 2006, doctors’ offices received 156 citations for bloodborne pathogen violations resulting in $51,064 in fines. (http://www.osha.gov). Additionally, during that same period general medical and surgical hospitals received 118 citations while nursing care facilities received 344 citations (http://www.osha.gov). 
Continue Reading Bloodborne Pathogen Standard Compliance Resources

The Illinois Attorney General has filed price fixing charges against the two largest physician groups in Champaign County, Illinois, charging them with boycotting Medicaid patients in order to raise prices. Carle Clinic Associates, P.C. has 300 physicians, 200 of which are in Champaign County, Illinois, representing a 60% market share. Christie Clinic, P.C. has 100 physicians, all…

The Internal Revenue Service issued a directive on May 11, 2007 confirming that the provision of hardware and software components of electronic health records (EHR) will not constitute private inurement jeopardizing the tax exempt status of non-profit hospitals. This directive is another step forward in facilitating hospital subsidized EHR for private practice physicians.

The Centers for…

CMS has issued interpretive guidelines regarding informed consent relating to the conditions of participation requirements for patient rights, informed consent for surgical services, and the appropriate contents of medical records. The guidelines were released on April 13, 2007 and can be found at the following link:

http://www.cms.hhs.gov/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/downloads/SCLetter07-17.pdf