CITISCAPE IT 281-733-2422

Houston Healthcare, as well as this nation’s healthcare system, are undergoing transformations in an effort to improve quality, safety and efficiency of care, from the upgrade to ICD-10 to information exchanges of EHR technology. To help facilitate this vision, HITECH established programs under Medicare and Medicaid to provide incentive payments for the "meaningful use" of certified EHR technology. The programs begin in 2011. Health Information Technology (HIT) provisions of the ARRA are found in Title IV of HITECH. Pursuant to HITECH, physicians and hospitals that implement the "meaningful use" of EHRs between 2010-2014 will be eligible for higher Medicare and Medicaid incentives. Federal matching funds will be available to states to support administrative costs associated with HITECH provisions. Providers that do not implement EHR may incur financial penalties in the form of lower Medicare reimbursements beginning in 2015. Start this year right by selecting an IT provider that has software development and implementation experience in medical software, as well as commercial software for the healthcare industry. For medical practices using Macs or PC's, or a mix of both (more common), Citiscape IT is 100 % HIPAA compliant and can make your network and software implementation HIPAA compliant. Citiscape IT staff are also HIPAA and SOX certified and are also required to successfully complete HIPAA Privacy & Security Training as part of their HIPAA Certification process (documentation provided upon request). We have IT professionals who are certified in the specific area of Information Systems Risk, Compliance and Audit. Being licensed by the State of Texas as well as HIPAA and SOX certified makes us unique in our service offerings available to the medical community. We provide credible medical practice references for those interested in letting us become your trusted Houston healthcare solutions advisor and IT partner for your Houston based medical practice. We can help your practice take advantage of technology that's quickly becoming the industry standard. The health care industry is in the process of transforming from a paper to an electronic environment. Let Citiscape IT be your key player during this critical step, as well as support your infrastructure beyond the project implementation and conversion phase. Assurance that time and money you invest in your EMR / EHR or PPM solutions are secure, efficient, and HIPAA compliant will prove to be well worth the investment.

• Application Migration

• Business Acquisition Due Diligence

• Business Process Automation

• Business Resumption Planning

• Database Migrations

• Disaster Recovery

• Document Management

• Electronic Medical Records
  

• HIPAA Security Reviews

• HIPAA Security Services & Monitoring

• Infrastructure Assessment

• Infrastructure Migration

• Network Design

• Network Implementation

• Network Security

• Physician Practice Management

• Process Automation

• Procurement Planning

• Project Management

HIPAA 5010

As we reported in the January 2012 edition of The Houston Medical Journal, HIPAA 5010 (aka HIPAA X12) is the new standard regulating electronic transmission of health care transactions, which is slated to start January 1, 2012. CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) has granted a grace period (not extension) of 90 days before enforcement of this new transmission standard. The transactions specified in the HIPAA 5010 standards are as follows:

270/271 Eligibility Benefits
276/277 Claim Statutes
820 Payroll deductions and group premium payments
834 Benefit Enrollments and Maintenance
835 Health Care Claims Payment Advice
837 Health Care Claims (Professional, Institution, Dental)

The entities required to upgrade are physicians, hospitals, payers, clearinghouses, pharmacies and dentists. Software vendors will need to upgrade their products to support the new 5010 compliant transmission standard. Practices must communicate with their vendors to determine what technology upgrades will take place, plus any additional costs incurred for these upgrades. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services provides an implementation guide and more details on 5010. Contact us for more details as well as a tactical implementation preparatory fact sheet for HIPAA 5010. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights intends to audit a wide variety of hospitals, physician groups, health plans and other covered entities this year. Unless you're into high-stakes gambling, your best bet is to assume you're going to be audited and get ready now. Contact us today for assistance at 281-733-2422 (select option 1).

Helping Houston Medical Practices Develop a Unified Approach to Information Security in BA Relationships

Medical and Healthcare groups experienced the largest incidence of insider theft, as did non-financial businesses according to a forthcoming study from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). Hacking and insider theft accounts for 40% of breaches in 2011 in the Healthcare sector. This is not good. The pace of EMR acceptance picks up steam daily, making security of patient data the number one downside of moving to EHR's. We all need to make a strong commitment to the responsibility of protecting EHR as a system and as a solution in Healthcare. Getting covered entities to require proof of compliance from their Business Associates has the greatest potential for protecting PHI. We offer third party security auditing services for Houston Medical Practices to verify BA compliance. Call us for details at 281-733-2422 ext 301 (option #1). The need for Houston Healthcare Practices to avoid financial and reputational risks from compliance cases has never been greater than it is now. Contact us today for a plan of action.

Meaningful Use Numbers from 2011

HITECH recently posted a run down of the EHR Incentive program's progress in 2011.

• 123,921 Eligible Professionals have registered for EHR Incentives, 15,255 have successfully attested to meaningful use in the Medicare program.
• 3,077 Eligible Hospitals have registered EHR Incentives and 604 of those have successfully attested to meaningful use.
• $2,533,689,145 has been paid out in Medicare and Medicaid Incentives.
• 277 hospitals have received payments under both Medicare and Medicaid and of those 12 were CAHs.
• 22% of eligible professionals that have been paid EHR incentives are Family Practitioners and 20% are Internal Medicine.
• 41 States Medicaid programs were open for registration. Two additional States launched in January of 2012.
• More than 1500 EHR products have been certified by ONC-ATCBs.

For properly monitored software, network infrastructure, and ePHI that are subject to HIPAA regulatory compliance, physical and logical security solutions apply. We can assist your Houston Medical Practice with secure and defensible solutions to your current infrastructure or assist you with other legally viable, defensible, and secure options. Properly monitored systems and services provide valuable data monitoring, reporting, and analysis such as access time, user ID, location, number of attempts, password and profile monitoring, email and web surfing monitoring, and more which will be readily available when an auditor shows up at your door. Auditors will ask for this stuff; you need to be proactive and not reactive. What do certified information technology security professionals have in common with those who earn a living as lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers, pharmacists, and dentists? They all need a license to practice their occupation. Effective and properly implemented HIPAA security and ePHI data require security monitoring and analysis at the detailed level which fall under state regulated security services if you outsource your information technology; thus the IT professional and company must be licensed by the State of Texas. Furthermore, workforce clearance procedures should have a policy which require ONGOING background investigations (periodically after the original hire date) on personnel as well as vendors who have access to ePHI according to the CMS Office of E-Health Standards and Services Workforce Clearance 164.308(a)(3)(ii)(B); which is a process that we are already required to complete to pass our annual state inspections as a company licensed and regulated under the Texas Regulatory Services Compliance and Enforcement Division. We can assist your assigned HIPAA security officer with consultation, defensible security practices and solutions, IT solutions, and EMR / EHR consultation services, as well as provide you with defensible HIPAA security services on an initial consultation or ongoing basis. We also have strong ties and come recommended by various EMR / PPM software vendors. Many EMR conversion and implementation projects head south due to lack of skilled project managers or process. Without this structure and planning ahead, your practice can lose significant revenue in down time. Get the facts BEFORE you sign a contract committing your practice to the unknown. We are familiar with many EMR applications on the market today. We are independent (not affiliated with one certain platform or application vendor) and can offer your practice an unbiased review on available solutions. We offer project management, data conversion, and ongoing support upon project completion on Microsoft and Apple Macintosh networks.

The absolute BEST Healthcare IT Consulting Firm in Texas. We Make IT Right!!