work plan

With a New Year Rolls in a New OIG Work Plan

Posted by Robert A. Chu on December 12, 2014
ACA, HHS, HIPAA, Medicaid, Medicare, OIG / No Comments

Recently, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its Work Plan for Fiscal Year 2015 (“Work Plan”).  The OIG protects the integrity of HHS programs by identifying fraud and abuse and by suggesting improvements to HHS programs.  The Work Plan informs the public of new and ongoing reviews that OIG plans to pursue during the current fiscal year.

For Fiscal Year 2015 and beyond, OIG intends to focus on emerging payment, eligibility, management, and IT systems security vulnerabilities in the ACA programs, such as the health insurance marketplace.  OIG stated that it would also focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of payment policies in inpatient and outpatient settings, for prescription drugs, and in managed care.

Some specific new items of note include: (1) identifying clinical laboratories that routinely submit improper Medicare claims, (2) reviewing the rate of and reasons for transfers from group homes or nursing facilities to emergency departments as a potential indicator of poor quality, (3) identifying Medicaid MCO payments made on behalf of deceased or ineligible beneficiaries, and (4) assessing the extent to which hospitals comply with the contingency planning requirements of HIPAA.

The Work Plan is a valuable resource annually published by the OIG for providers to identify potential compliance risk areas.

Cozen O’Connor recently published another blog of the Work Plan with the Work Plan’s specific focus on HIPAA and/or information technology that the OIG will examine and address during Fiscal Year 2015.

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OIG’s New Work Plan Focuses on the Security of Health Information

Posted by Gregory M. Fliszar on December 04, 2014
CMS, HHS, HIPAA, OIG / No Comments

On October 31, 2014, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released its Work Plan for fiscal year (FY) 2015.  The Work Plan summarizes “new and ongoing reviews of activities that OIG plans to pursue with respect to HHS programs and operations during the current fiscal year and beyond.”  In the Work Plan OIG identified several areas related to HIPAA and/or information technology that it will examine and address during FY 2015.

As a new addition to the Work Plan, OIG will determine the extent to which hospitals comply with the contingency requirements of HIPAA.  HIPAA’s Security Rule requires covered entities and their business associates to have in place a contingency plan that establishes policies and procedures for responding to an emergency or other event (such as, for example, natural disasters, system failures, terrorism) that damages systems containing electronic protected health information (ePHI).  These policies and procedures must, at a minimum, include data backup plans, data recovery plans and plans to continue to protect the security of ePHI while operating in emergency operations mode.  In the Work Plan OIG advises that it will compare contingency plans used by hospitals with government and industry recommended practices. 

As part of the Work Plan, OIG will continue to examine whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) oversight of hospitals’ security controls over networked medical devices is sufficient to protect ePHI.   The OIG noted that computerized medical devices such as dialysis machines, radiology systems and medication dispensing systems that use hardware, software and networks to monitor a patient’s condition and transmit and/or receive data using wired or wireless communications pose a growing threat to the security and privacy of personal health information. 

OIG also plans to continue to perform audits of covered entities receiving incentive payments for the use of electronic health records (EHRs) and their business associates (including cloud providers) to determine whether they are adequately protecting ePHI created or maintained by certified EHR technology.  In addition, OIG will review the adequacy of CMS’ oversight of states’ Medicaid system and information controls.  Prior OIG audits found that states often fail to have in place adequate security features, potentially exposing Medicaid beneficiary information to unauthorized access.

As to future endeavors, the Work Plan stated that other areas under consideration for new work include the security of electronic data, the use and exchange of health information technology, and emergency preparedness and response efforts.  In addition, OIG advises that in FY 2015 and beyond, it will continue to focus on IT systems security vulnerabilities in health care reform programs such as health insurance marketplaces. 

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