This has been a crazy month for ransomware attacks and, unfortunately, the vast majority of them have been focused on healthcare facilities and providers. In fact, no less than five healthcare organizations have been hit in just the last 30 days (and those are just the ones we know about because they were actually reported). On March 30, King’s Daughters Health in Madison, Ind. had to shut down their EMR after finding a user file infected with a well-known form of ransomware dubbed “Locky.” Then, on April 4, operations at MedStar Health were brought to a screeching halt by a ransomware attack that locked their EMR and demanded a payment of roughly $19,000 worth of Bitcoin to release the data. MedStar chose not to pay the ransom, instead taking the time to restore their system via backups. However, I would bet dollars to donuts that doing so ended up costing them far more than $19,000 when all was said and done.

CMS reimbursement cuts to ophthalmology have some industry experts predicting big changes to practice patterns, from fewer residents entering the specialty to fewer surgeons entering the operating room. To survive, specialists are going to need a game plan for increasing revenue.

In a study conducted by REACH Health, nearly 400 healthcare executives, physicians, nurses and other professionals gave their feedback regarding the impact of telemedicine in their own practices. The REACH Health 2016 U.S. Telemedicine Industry Benchmark Survey found that 62 percent of practices currently utilizing telemedicine believed it was highly successful in improving patient convenience. An additional 36 percent regarded it as "moderately successful."

The Physician Quality Reporting System is gaining momentum as we move forward into 2016. With new acronyms (MIPS, MACRA, PQRS, MU, VBM, etc.) making an appearance on what feels like a monthly basis, it’s important to know where the program is headed and what your game plan will be for avoiding penalties.

Advancements in healthcare technology have fostered an environment more encouraging for greater patient engagement between patients and providers.

Settled into ICD-10 yet? The infamous transition to the new coding system last October was met with a significant amount of controversy, but now almost six months out, it appears it wasn't as rocky as many believed, despite the 155,000 total ICD-10 codes.

In an effort to provide relief for both eligible medical professionals and eligible hospitals and critical access hospitals, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has once again extended the deadline to file for a hardship exception for Meaningful Use. The deadline now sits at July 1, 2016. This is the second time in the last month that CMS has opted to push back the hardship exception deadline. Originally, the deadline was March 15 for eligible professionals.

Before venturing out to attend the 2016 Nextech EDGE conference last week, I decided to write a bit of a teaser blog article on a topic I was covering at my session on cybersecurity—Social Engineering. (Side note: I would like to extend a most sincere thank you to everyone at EDGE who attended my sessions). In order to avoid publishing any spoilers, however, I chose not to go into too much detail and promised to elaborate further once I returned from the conference. Well… I have returned, so it is time for me to make good on that promise. Since we already explained what social engineering is in the previous article, I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash all the basics. Instead, let’s start by taking a look at some examples of social engineering tactics that are commonly employed by hackers and cybercriminals.