HIPAA Protects Millions with Unintended Consequences

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was endorsed by Congress in 1996 and was the last significant legislative legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy. It is enforced by the Office for Civil Rights and mandates nationally recognized regulations for use and/or disclosure of an individual's health information by a “covered entity”. Such an entity is a health plan, healthcare clearinghouse or healthcare provider. The benefits for patients, and potentially all 310,000,000 Americans and unknown number of undocumented immigrants who are patients, are mandatory control over their personal information, minimizing inappropriate disclosure, a mechanism to investigate breeches and holding violators accountable with civil or criminal penalties. Also, patients benefit because limitations were placed on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and the act eases transfer of coverage to new geographic or employment locations. By this accounting, HIPAA is a federal government regulation enacted for the public's benefit with no bias as to race, income, religion, sex or sexual preference. Unless, however, you are one of those “covered entities”.

HIPAA compliance is not like driving above posted speeds, providing alcoholic beverages to minors, or charging usurious interest rates. Compliance involves educating the entire workforce of the healthcare industry that generates 17% of Gross Domestic Product with the knowledge, materials and oversight to comply with the arcane jargon of a hundred pages of legislative statute-speak. The American Hospital Association estimated that the average cost of HIPAA training for each employee was $16 in addition to the substantial costs of printing a multipage rights form for every patient and displaying appropriate signage in every patient care area. Additionally, “covered entities” must keep a record of which patients received notices and often have to rebuild and redesign waiting rooms and registration units to ensure greater privacy. The Ponemon Institute surveyed 600 healthcare professionals representative of the spectrum of care providers and administrators in 2013. Their estimate was that HIPAA-related outdated technology and rules cost US hospitals over $8 billion each and every year-- a fixed new line on the cost sheet. The above are hospital costs, no one has an accurate estimate of costs for doctors' and dentists' and other providers' private offices. Moreover, for physicians, HIPAA compliance reduces the time available for patient care, makes access to electronic patient information more difficult (despite mandates of the Affordable Care Act) and restricts use of electronic communication. As is so often the case in the practice of medicine, no good deed goes unpunished. We practice as a calling, and have to given that insurers and the government continue to attack our reimbursement structure despite requiring more non-remunerative activity.  HIPAA should serve as a reminder of the unintended consequences of well-intentioned laws, to both patients and physicians, and the destination the road paved with such leads.

 

 

By Norman Silverman, MD, with Ryan McKennon, DO and Ren Carlton

Make Angel Investments That Go 10x, Unleashing Monster Returns for a Family Juice Business

I look for angel investments that have the potential to produce a 10x return on my investment in 5 years. Startup investing is one of the more risky investment categories. Therefore, you should expect these businesses to have the possibility of doing well. If you invest in 10 businesses, and nine of them fail, the remaining business needs to give you a 10x return just to break even. Ideally, you will do better than that and enjoy healthy returns.

Build Your List of Potential Investors, Pitch Investors Properly, How Kevin Systrom Raised $500,000 in Two Weeks to Launch InstagramFind Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 12

Most startups need funding at some point. Once you have the addressed all of the items in the previous episodes, it is time to build your list of potential investors and start the conversations. They can be friends, family, social network, social media contacts, work colleagues, people in the business industry, etc. Try to put together a list of at least one hundred people. A list of one hundred potential investors may seems like a lot, but the more people you have on the list, the better your chances are of success.

Making Money With Your Business, Profit and Cash Flow, Five Sustainable Companies That Make a Lot of MoneyFind Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 10

It is time to make money! You have been through a couple of rounds of market testing now you feel like you are on to something. The next step is to run the numbers to make sure that the business is sustainable. There are two sides to making money, profitability and cash flow.

Why Competition Is Good For Entrepreneurs and How Blockbuster’s $50 Million Mistake Helped Reed Hastings and Netflix Destroy a $6 Billion Empire Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Epis

When battling for resources or investment, early-stage entrepreneurs may believe that competition is a bad thing. On the surface, they are correct. There are a limited number of angel investors willing to provide a finite amount of venture capital to founders.

Upscaling and Scaling Business Ideas into Reality – Jeff Bezos takes Amazon from Online Bookstore to Global DominanceFind Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 4

Congratulations, your market testing worked and you were able to find customers, or at least one customer. Your beta test was successful and you are confident that you are ready for more. What do you do when you start getting customers or users? I recommend you do some scaling or upscaling.

What Kind of Business Should You Start? – How Mark Zuckerberg Pivoted From Rating Hotness to FacebookFind Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 1

When it comes to brainstorming startup ideas, new entrepreneurs and even seasoned ones scratch their heads in confusion. Living in the information age, you can scan the current market and see countless new business ideas. With so many options out there, how do you know which one is right for you?

Why Would a Doctor Abandon a Steady Paycheck to Become an Entrepreneur?

As physicians, we are expected to be compliant with rules, restrictions, and regulations. We are expected to be risk averse. We are expected to be “providers,” but not necessarily innovators or leaders. As the healthcare system becomes increasingly consolidated into large overcrowded clinics, we are required to perform to the standards set by bureaucrats and clinic managers. These rules are often at odds with the best interests of patients and with our sanity.
Page: 1234 - All