Healthcare Ransomware Attacks Increased by 94% in 2021 Ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations increased by 94% year over year, according to the 2022 State of Ransomware Report from cybersecurity firm Sophos. The report is based on a global survey of 5,600 IT professionals and included interviews with 381 healthcare IT professionals from 31 countries. This year’s report…
Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System On April 18, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the fiscal year (FY) 2023 Medicare Hospital Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) and Long‑Term Care Hospital (LTCH) Prospective Payment System (PPS) proposed rule. The proposed rule would update Medicare fee-for-service payment rates and policies for inpatient hospitals…
More audits are coming, how do we stay compliant? We have been saying it but now it is happening. More audits are coming your way. One of the two CMS Recovery Audit Contractors seems to have taken on a business expansion plan. It appears they are contacting payers of all types and sizes and trying…
The American Medical Association (AMA) has made CPT code update 2022. It contains 405 code changes, which include 249 new codes, 63 deletions, and 93 code revisions, which would be effective with the date of service on January 1, 2022. We’ll focus mainly on new codes, so be sure to check each section’s specific CPT guidelines and…
Healthcare Scores Poorly for Practicing the Cyber Incident Response 2021 was another record-breaking year for healthcare industry data breaches with over 50 million records breached and over 900 data breaches were recorded by databreaches.net. Given the extent to which the healthcare industry is targeted by cyber actors, the risk of a data breach occurring is high.…
Surprise billing & protecting consumers As of January 1, 2022, consumers have new billing protections when getting emergency care, non-emergency care from out-of-network providers at in-network facilities, and air ambulance services from out-of-network providers. Through new rules aimed to protect consumers, excessive out-of-pocket costs are restricted, and emergency services must continue to be covered without any prior authorization, and…