Originally discussed in President Obama’s State of the Union speech back in January, the White House is now looking for the help of those in the medical industry to ensure the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) is a success. In the official blog of the Executive Branch, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist in the Office of Science and Technology Policy DJ Patil and PMI Project Manager Stephanie Devaney asked for the feedback of both the public and private sectors.

When Meaningful Use began for eligible professionals (EP’s) back in 2011, the physicians who chose to participate in the government program rushed to implement electronic medical record solutions in order to meet Stage 1 requirements and receive the maximum incentive payments.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have ‘upped the ante’ when it comes to Meaningful Use audits in 2015. Figliozzi and Company were the sole auditors for Meaningful Use until 2015. This year, however, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is performing its own round of Meaningful Use audits, which differ slightly from the Figliozzi and Company in that they are focusing on certain measures over a three year period. Figliozzi and Company reviews all of the Meaningful Use measures for a single attestation period. The OIG has the following main goals behind their audits:

Back in early May, I posted a blog article on the approved draft of the 21st Century Cures Act—a bill designed to streamline funding and hasten approvals for new biomedical research, cures, and medical treatments for rare, terminal, and chronic conditions. In that article, I also promised that I would keep everyone up to speed as things developed. Well… things are developing. Don’t worry, though… it looks like mostly good things are happening, for once.

Some of you may have read my blog article on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), and the decade long history of “doc fixes” leading up to it, posted back in April. At that time, there were certain details of the new law that were still being ironed out. And there are a number of things that still remain in development limbo when it comes to how MACRA is going to play out in the future (even Paul Spitalnic, Chief Actuary of the CMS, has claimed that MACRA is not sustainable past the year 2048).

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has teamed up with the American Medical Association (AMA) to provide additional measures designed to ease the ICD-10 transition when the Oct. 1 deadline approaches.

Interoperability. To say it’s a priority for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would be an understatement. As an added effort to encourage interoperability between vendors and providers, the CMS is calling on everyone in the medical community to – for lack of a better word – snitch.

21st Century Cures Act Proposes to Affect HIPAA Privacy Rule, PHI Restrictions, & ONC Certifications