In Case You Missed It -- Healthcare Daily Digest for Wednesday, 19 December

Eyes Like an Ice Dragon: Gaze into the piercing hazel eyes of Leon Rodriguez, director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights, and they gaze back into you. He knows your secrets. Your dreams. How you ate that yogurt that wasn’t yours in the staff refrigerator but you’d forgotten your lunch that morning and that yogurt had clearly been in there for several days already with no one eating it until today, when you ate it, and then Steph’s all, “Who ate my yogurt?” and even though at Thanksgiving you’d tearfully told everyone in the office that “you guys are TOTALLY my family,” you’re not sure if one of these mouth-breathers won’t sell you out in the name of justice and what? What’s the point of all this? Oh, Rodriguez is saying that HIPAA compliance audits will resume within about a year once results of a recently completed pilot program are reviewed. “My best guess is that [audits] will continue either in the latter part of 2013 … [or] certainly by 2014, we’ll be back in the business again.” It would be nice, of course, if someone described as “the nation’s chief HIPAA enforcer” could be a little more firm about dates — especially because of the aforementioned dragon-eyes.

Other headlines you may want to check out:

At Least He Didn’t Try for an Insanity Defense…: The owner of a string of community mental health centers pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a $63 million health care fraud scheme.” Part of the cunning plan: billing for mental health services not provided to people who sometimes didn’t exist.

The New Healthcare Facility is Here! The New Healthcare Facility is Here!: Congratulations are in order to the folks of Granite City, Illinois. “A new $8.8 million health center offers affordable primary care services to an additional 4,500 patients in the region.”

Some Reading for Over the Break: The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has a 14-page report you can read that details the importance of paying attention to the encryption of personal health information. There are a variety of pitfalls: the proliferation of smartphones; that new, irritating acronym “BYOD” which stands for Bring Your Own Device, describing the prevelance of people more and more using their personal computers in the workplace; the deep hole a helathcare provider can find itself in as the result of any data breach. Worth a couple of your minutes.

Why You Can’t Make Company Checks Out to Yourself: Learn well from the mistakes of poor Jhoanna Engelhardt-Fullar, sentenced for stealing $200,000 from her workplace, Princeton Healthcare System. “Engelhardt-Fullar began writing fake checks to herself and transferring the money budgeted for the staff account to her own credit cards in 2010 and continued through December 2011. The purchases included groceries, repairs on her car, payments to a timeshare, meals at restaurants and Apple electronics.” The purchases did not include salon visits or Glamor Shots. (Me-ow!)

Texas Does the Right Thing (This is Not a Set-Up for a Joke): “The state of Texas is restoring some cuts it made to low-income, elderly patients on Medicare and Medicaid.” The article quotes Dr Bruce Malone, President of the Texas Medical Association: “They didn’t realize how devastating [those cuts were] going to be. And I think once they did, they promised to pay it so these patients won’t be without doctors. It’s a crisis that is narrowly averted. It’s a great first step. Now, we’ve got to see if we can restore the other part of Medicare/Medicaid, which is the 20 percent that the government never pays.”

Cart Before the Horse?: “The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) is developing a framework that will identify the health IT components necessary for healthcare providers to function effectively as an accountable care organization (ACO),” this article over at InformationWeek.com starts out. But then… “At this point, however, it is not clear what CCHIT would certify or whether the market is ready for such a program.” Which is like the time when I was a kid where I offered detective services for people living on either side of me because I wasn’t allowed to cross the street or go around the corner.

Look: SOMEONE is Going to Have to Be the Brunt of Medicare Cuts: Seniors nearing age 62 don’t want to see Medicare raised to 67. People with all the money don’t want to have to pay more in premiums. This story from the New York Times is suggesting “some consensus is building around the idea that the largest Medicare savings should come from hospitals and other institutional providers of care.” So now hospitals are worried and don’t want to be in those crosshairs. My idea? Let’s all promise to not get sick in 2013! Problem solved and you’re welcome.

Maine Hospitals Ask “Can We Have Our Money Now?”: Thirty-nine hospitals in Maine are owed over $484 million in overdue Medicaid reimbursements. The state’s share of the debt is $186 million. Some of it dates back to 2009, and it must be paid to free up about $298 million in federal matching funds that some hospital officials say they need desperately.”

Out With the Old, in With the New: “Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced the appointments of five new members to the 2013 Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans – known as the ERISA Advisory Council. She also announced the incoming chair and vice chair of the council.”

A Q&A: Here’s your chance to read what Scott Lundstrom, Group Vice President of IDC Health Insights, has to say about Insurance Exchanges. He hauls out the term “tiger trap” so you know it’s about to get folksy and serious.