Last year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) adopted a new OSHA Hazard Communication Standard. The new standard is now aligned with the United Nations’ Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals. All dental and medical providers, pharmacies and other healthcare employers must comply the Hazard Communication Standard as well as other applicable OSHA standards. [...]
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Healthcare Compliance UpdatesSection 6002 of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Sunshine Act”) imposes new reporting requirements on financial relationships between medical and pharmaceutical makers and physicians and teaching hospitals. While lauded for its attempts to bring greater transparency to industry financial relationships some wonder whether the implementation methods planned by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would expand the Act beyond the boundaries envisioned by Congress. [...] Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) calculated the savings its programs brought to the Federal government in 2011. The statistics, which reveal recoveries in the billions, serve as a sobering reminder to providers of the increasing interest by the government in ensuring that providers are complying with the healthcare laws and regulations. [...] This is the third and final article in the series evaluating the NYS Medicaid Compliance Program requirements. The previous two articles looked at those providers required to have a compliance program under the law and the annual certification requirement. In this article, we examine the core elements of a compliance program. [...] This is our second article in a series discussing the New York State Medicaid’s compliance program requirements. In our first article we focused on which providers are required by law to have a compliance program. In this article, we turn our attention to the annual certification requirement. [...] The necessity of having a compliance program is no longer a requirement providers can ignore. In the next series of articles, we briefly address the compliance program requirements for New York State Medicaid providers, starting with the overview of the regulations below. [...] Yesterday the Department of Health and Human Services announced a proposed rule that would delay the implementation of the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition, diagnosis and procedure code (ICD-10) from October 1, 2013 to October 1, 2014. The proposed rule is in response to providers’ concerns about meeting HHS’ compliance deadline for Version [...] Most healthcare providers are aware of the need to comply with the Occupational Health And Safety Act (OSHA) to assure, so far as possible, safe and healthful working conditions for their office staff. Here is a quick checklist of the annual OSHA requirement:
Continue reading » You have patients in the waiting room, two patients in exam rooms, your receptionists has a question for you, and right as your cell phone goes off, your assistant is asking you about a prescription. And when the sun sets, you are returning calls to patients and colleagues. OSHA compliance may not be at the top of your to-do list.
Continue reading » On September 8, 2011, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued its first directive on Enforcement Procedures for Investigating or Inspecting Workplace Violence Incidents. The directive provides guidelines and general policies and procedures that apply when OSHA investigators conduct an inspection under a national, regional or local emphasis program or in response to incidents of workplace violence.
Continue reading » More than a decade ago the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued Compliance Program Guidelines for Individual And Small Group Physician Practices, which are a set of voluntary guidelines for a small group physician practice or an individual practitioner. Nowadays, when federal and state governments are increasingly interested in cutting fraud, waste and abuse from their healthcare programs, they are aggressively looking to audit and investigate healthcare providers’ services. It therefore behooves providers to demonstrate to auditing and investigating agencies a practice’s adherence to applicable statutes, regulations and other program requirements through the creation and implementation of a written compliance plan.
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