Can Your Practice Survive an Inspection by HHS?

By Joe Day, CPA

Image courtey of wikimedia

Medical practices routinely deal with a mountain of regulations.  That's a given.  However, HIPAA and ACA are two of the most dangerous laws to medical practices that have ever been enacted. Looming on the horizon are audits that could spell disaster for  medical practices of all types.  Evern worse, it’s not a matter of if but when Health and Human Services – Office of Civil Rights will be done chasing hospitals and larger medical facilities before turning their attention on medical practices.  

Many physicians have been burying their head in the sand and hoping an HHS audit will never come. The AMA has ceased fighting the battle to make it go away.  Meanwhile the fine for the first offense is $50,000, with $10,000 for each additional violation.  With fines like these, it won’t take long for an inspector to put most practices that are deemed non-compliant out of business. 

The Elephant in the Room

The threat of an HHS audit is not hypothetical.  It is very real.  A consultant I know who does HIPAA and ACA consulting work with the State of Florida at medical facilities operated by the state has been observing the fines being levied against the state.  His assessment is that medical practices are going to be seeing these inspectors in the near future (2 years at most).  

Image courtesy Creative Commons

What's even more alarming is that the solution to this impending disaster is available today.  The best defense against being deemed in non-compliance and getting fined is to hire a consultant who can inspect your practice and come up with a plan to bring your practice into compliance.    Creating a working relationship with a consultant provides any medical practice with a protective defense which an HHS inspector should respect, since you are actively engaged in taking corrective actions before they arrive, foregoing fines for a limited time.

While it costs a bit of time and money to engage a consultant to inspect your practice, this investment and the investment in corrective measures will be far less than the fines you’ll face if you are deemed to be in non-compliance.

Have You Given Your Systems a Checkup Lately? 

Image courtesy Joe Day, CPA

EMR and EHR are two systems within your practice that must be tied together in order to be compliant.   Yet there are very few software companies today that interface these two systems.  If you are still using manual medical notes that are being given to a scribe to transfer to billing, you’re in violation and likely fined.

Before HHS sends the OCR hounds to your door, schedule a free visit from one of our consultants. They can show you how to meet HIPAA and ACA requirements.  Call me at (904) 881-5491 and CURIS Practice Solutions LLC will start you on the road that will bring your practice into compliance.

Joe Day CPA is an accountant who specializes in working with medical practices.