Photo: HHS.gov The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services today announced the appointment of Lisa J. Pino as Director of the Office for Civil Rights. WHY IT MATTERS At OCR Pino will be in charge of enforcing healthcare civil rights laws, such as the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules, the Patient Safety and Quality […]
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill this past week that expands access to virtual care throughout the state. The bill, HB 3308, requires insurance reimbursement parity for virtual mental health and substance use disorder services, as well as authorizing all other telehealth to be covered through 2027. “The legislation I’ll sign today […]
Speaking on Thursday at Sirona Strategies’ Health IT Leadership Roundtable, newly-minted National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripathi offered an overview of ONC’s strategic priorities for the near future, and described how the agency is doing tactical work on wider Biden administration policy goals. Of course, said Tripathi, “Job number one is COVID-19 right now. […]
A bipartisan group of U.S. representatives has reintroduced a bill aimed at expanding access to telehealth beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The Protecting Access to Post-COVID-19 Telehealth Act of 2021 legislation was introduced this past week by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., cosponsored by Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, David Schweikert, R-Ariz., John Curtis, R-Utah; and Doris Matsui, […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights announced Friday that Excellus Health Plan, also known as Excellus BlueCrossBlueShield, has agreed to pay $5.1 million to settle potential HIPAA violations. The potential violations regarded a breach lasting nearly a year and a half that affected over 9.3 million people, said OCR. “We […]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week published its first action plan for how it intends to spur development and oversight of safe, patient-centric artificial intelligence and machine learning-based software as a medical device. WHY IT MATTERS The AI/ML-Based Software as a Medical Device Action Plan is a project of the Digital Health Center […]
There’s no question that the COVID-19 crisis ignited unprecedented patient interest in telehealth. But along with the skyrocketing appointment rates and glowing reports about patient and provider satisfaction came concerns about security, accessibility and longevity. Many of those questions are still unanswered as we turn the corner into 2021. But to gain a sense of […]
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week revised its official testing guidelines regarding asymptomatic people, triggering concerns from public health and industry groups. The new guidelines state that those without symptoms may not need a test, even if they have been in close contact with someone with a COVID-19 infection. The […]
The American Hospital Association sent an open letter to President Donald Trump this week recommending actions that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services should take to safeguard patient access to telehealth after the public health emergency ends. The president issued an executive order in early August in support of making some temporary flexibilities for telehealth […]
Children have specific and unique medical needs – and software supporting their care should be tailored to help address those needs. So the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has published a new informational resource aimed at shaping the specifications of technology products intended for pediatric use. “There are critical functionalities, data elements, […]
