For the first time since the public comment period ended for the proposed MACRA rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Acting Administrator, Andy Slavitt, spoke about the potential changes in a testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on July 13, according to a report from HealthcareIT News. Slavitt disclosed a couple important themes that were present throughout the more than 3,000 public comments on MACRA.

On Wednesday, July 6, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a proposal to change the length of the Meaningful Use reporting period for 2016 from a full calendar year to only 90 days. "These changes include a proposal for clinicians, hospitals and critical access hospitals to use a 90-day EHR reporting period in 2016—down from a full calendar year for returning participants,” CMS stated in its announcement. “This increases flexibility and lowers the reporting burden for hospital providers.”

The public comment period for the newly proposed MACRA rule ended this past Monday. As expected, the new program, put forth by CMS, created a lot of controversy in the medical industry. While not all of the 3,700 comments from healthcare providers and professionals were negative, the proposed rule was far from perfect in the eyes of many.

Compliance never sleeps, especially if you're a specialty physician and important dates are upcoming that you need to be aware of in your practice. Whether you're a dermatologist, ophthalmologist or a plastic surgeon, ensure that your practice addresses these compliance items in the coming days and weeks.

The ICD-10 transition last October brought much stress to the healthcare community. With more than 144,000 codes and so much to learn, providers wondered how it would impact their practices, financially and administratively.

Every day, it seems something new is happening in the healthcare industry. Whether it's greater innovations in technology, breaking compliance news or even the growing threat of data hacking, there's a lot going on in healthcare. So you're able to catch up on all of the relevant news, lunchtime links will be a valuable resource for you to read about what's going on in the industry in one place, rather than searching all over the Internet.

While the current ICD-10 “grace period” offers physicians at least some protection against gratuitous rejections as everyone adjusts to the new system, this concession will end on October 1 2016. This means that, in a matter of months, all physicians in the U.S. will be expected to code in ICD-10 with a high level of proficiency and specificity. Those who cannot will likely experience a sudden uptick in rejected claims, as well as open themselves up to the possibility of non-compliance fines from Health and Human Services (HHS).

"This matters. It's a matter of life and death." Those were the words of Vice President Joe Biden on Monday when he spoke at the Health Datapalooza in Washington, DC. The importance of healthcare IT and data sharing isn't lost on Biden. He experienced it firsthand as his son, Beau, was fighting cancer over a year ago. The Vice President described how difficult it was for the different hospitals his son received care at to share information.