HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical Billing Services

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HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical Billing
Services
Basics of HIPAA Medical Billers and Coders
(MBC) being a leading medical billing company
manages all revenue cycle management activities
in HIPAA compliant way. In this article, we
shared the basics of HIPAA compliance, and how
selecting HIPAA-compliant ophthalmology medical
billing services can help to receive accurate
insurance reimbursements while reducing the
chances of payer audits. HIPAA is the acronym for
the Health Insurance Accountability and
Portability Act. Although HIPAA covers many
things, physicians including ophthalmologists are
most concerned with HIPAAs administrative
simplification provisions, particularly the
privacy, security, and breach notification
requirements. At its core, HIPAA simply
implements longstanding physician commitments to
protect the confidentiality of their patients
medical information and maintain open
physician-patient communications. However, the
specificity of the requirements goes well beyond
traditional, self-evident obligations, and
violations can result in serious penalties.
Physicians should also note that HIPAA is
considered a floor, meaning, states may have
requirements that go above and beyond what the
federal government requires. The most important
thing ophthalmologists must be aware of is that
theres no such thing as HIPAA-compliant
certification.
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HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical Billing
Services
In other words, ophthalmology practices cant
earn an approval that makes them compliant once
and always. While credentialed staff at
independent firms can give their professional
opinion on your practices HIPAA compliance
status, any HIPAA assessment is just a snapshot
in time. HIPAA compliance is a continual effort
of your practice. To protect your practice
against a security breach and ensure youre in
compliance with HIPAA, follow some steps like
educating staff about the importance of complying
with HIPAA requirements performing a privacy and
security risk assessment for all health care
information technology, and not just your
electronic health records also maintain a paper
trail to ensure all electronic patient
information is encrypted when in transit and at
rest. HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical
Billing Services Being a leading ophthalmology
medical billing services provider, Medical
Billers and Coders (MBC) has an efficient audit
system to ensure proper documentation as well as
timely entries of all superbills so as to avoid
missed charges. Our coders are divided as per
medical specialty, so our AAPC-certified coders
are well versed in the latest CPT, ICD-10, and
HCPCS codes.
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HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical Billing
Services

• Our coders clearly understand the reimbursement
  rules of all major insurances including Medicare,
  Medicaid, Workers Compensation, and personal
  injury. Being leading ophthalmology medical
  billing services provider, we observed a lot of
  HIPAA violations done by practices almost every
  day, some of them are as follows
• Uninformed or unaware employees are the most
  common reasons for HIPAA violations. HIPAA
  requires all employees who come into contact with
  PHI to receive training. The inability to educate
  employees on HIPAA policies is a violation of the
  law.
• Employees accidentally disclosing patient
  information is the most common HIPAA violation.
  Your front desk and billers having patient
  information may disclose this PHI (protected
  health information) while having a casual
  discussion with friends or co-workers.
• Some ophthalmology practices still use paper
  charts or records. The provider might be
  violating HIPAA rules by accidentally leaving a
  patients chart in an exam room for other
  patients to see it. Forgetting a patients lab
  test results near the public area printer is also
  a HIPAA violation.
• Due to lack of training, staff may disclose PHI
  to a patients family member or to a medical
  facility for further treatment. But sharing
  patients PHI without their written permission is
  a HIPAA violation. May may post patient photos or
  textual information on social networks. Its also
  a HIPAA violation. Even if your employees do not
  mention names and other details, someone may
  recognize the patient, which is a breach of
  privacy.

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HIPAA Compliant Ophthalmology Medical Billing
Services

• An unauthorized employee accessing a celebrity
  patients PHI out of curiosity is a widespread
  HIPAA violation. This violation could cost your
  practice a hefty fine or your employee his or her
  job and even jail time.
• Providers might use their home computers after
  work hours to access PHI to record notes. This
  could result in a HIPAA violation if a family
  member uses the computer and sees the patient
  information.
• If you are not sure if your ophthalmology
  practice is following HIPAA compliance, you can
  always think about outsourcing your ophthalmology
  medical billing services. Being a HIPAA-compliant
  ophthalmology medical billing services
  provider, Medical Billers and Coders (MBC) can
  keep PHI protected all the time, even while
  processing the claims. To discuss more our
  ophthalmology medical billing services, email us
  at info_at_medicalbillersandcoders.com or call
  us 888-357-3226.
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