The stakes for healthcare security have never been higher, yet healthcare organizations and EHR companies struggle to maintain compliance with an ever-increasing number of requirements and regulations — like the upcoming third stage of Meaningful Use.

Earlier this month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) posted an FAQ webpage on their site with the aim of clarifying the Public Health Reporting Objective (PHRO) Alternate Exclusions for EPs and hospitals that are attesting to Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Meaningful Use in 2015.

On this blog, we’ve already discussed the immediate “aftermath” of the ICD-10 launch in the United States. Needless to say, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some folks had predicted. Sure, there have been a few annoying problems—mainly caused by a handful of insurance companies who refuse to play by the “grace period” rules that were set down by the CMS. Other than that, however, things have gone rather smoothly so far. In fact, according to metrics compiled and published by Relay Health, things appear to have already begun to normalize since the October 1st ICD-10 deadline (and the month isn’t even over yet).

In a new study from the Office of National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), it appears patients are being offered access to their electronic medical records and increasingly choosing to check them as well. The new numbers from 2014 report that approximately 40 percent of patients were offered access and nearly half of those patients eventually followed through on checking their EMRs. Just one year ago, only 28 percent of patients were offered access to their EMR and a slight less amount of patients -- 46 percent -- actually accessed them.

We've reached the two-week milestone for ICD-10. How's your practice doing? There's little doubt that' you've experienced some stress, no matter how prepared your practice may have been. Transitioning to ICD-10 is no small feat and we realize that many of you are still navigating your way through the ICD-10 transition, armed with plenty of questions. To help prepare our clients, we've posted a lot over the last several months about ICD-10, but just because the deadline has passed doesn't mean many of those questions have disappeared.

As EHR technology progresses, a greater emphasis has been placed on nationwide interoperability between vendors in order to take full advantage of patients' electronic health information. Last week, ONC released its final interoperability report, "Connecting Health and Care for the Nation: A Shared Nationwide Interoperability Roadmap." In the roadmap, ONC laid out three high-level goals for health IT interoperability to help ensure they achieve a "learning health system by 2024.

Specialty physicians are one week in to the ICD-10 era. Yes, the long-awaited ICD-10 deadline has come and gone. How is everyone feeling? For many, the transition represented large amounts of stress and frustration due to either the sheer size of ICD-10, unpreparedness or even both. So how can you best attack the ICD-10 transition, even when the deadline has already passed?

Late yesterday afternoon, the long awaited day finally arrived when CMS officially announced that the proposed rules regarding Meaningful Use, originally announced back in April of this year, are final! The changes do not alter the calculation of the measures so no software update is needed for 2015 attestation reporting. Here's how the latest news from CMS will affect you and your practice.