Practice Management News and Education

So far this year, business associate breaches account for roughly 12 percent of the total breaches reported to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), or 27 of the 233 reported breaches as of September 19. What does this mean to a covered entity? It means that it’s not enough to require a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA). Vendors should be diligently vetted.

If you know any employed physician colleagues or residents who may be interested in starting their own practice, we have recently published a comprehensive how-to guide to ease the process: The Physician’s Action Guide to Starting Your Own Practice.

If you are contemplating a change in your practice, please notify CAP as soon as possible so our Membership Services Department can review your options with you and make your coverage transition a smooth one.

You probably know that as a CAP member, you get far more than just superior medical liability protection. But many physician members and their staff are still not aware of the full breadth of free and discounted benefits we make available through our CAPAdvantage program. 

Patients come in many shapes and sizes, and so do their complaints, from the ridiculous to the serious. We frequently hear about these on the CAP Hotline, so we’re doing a short story on the subject.  For our purposes, we’ll call complaints as those coming directly from patients in either written or oral form. Grievances, on the other hand, are those from the patient’s healthcare plan, which all have a grievance management program.

We wanted to inform you that Risk E-Notes is being replaced by a new monthly digest, Patient Safety Advocate. As you know, Risk E Notes is a bimonthly email newsletter published by CAP’s Risk Management and Patient Safety Newsletter. Risk E-Notes has been written for independent physicians and their office staff. We know how busy you are and we know how difficult it is to keep up with the latest risk management news and trends.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has certified California’s Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES). Effective October 2, 2018, it will become mandatory for all health care practitioners to consult and review the CURES 2.0 system prior to prescribing, ordering, administering, or furnishing a Schedule II-IV controlled substance.

A federal official has expressed hope that healthcare researchers and professionals will continue to have some kind of substitute resource following the scheduled July 16 shutdown of the National Guidelines Clearinghouse.

A California appellate court has ruled that an expert’s declaration that a hospital followed a physician’s orders to monitor two troubled young patients was not enough to establish that the facility met its duty to a patient who claimed he was sexually assaulted by his roommate.

CAP’s Human Resources Department offers a free customizable human resources manual designed to assist you in providing appropriate office policies for the management of your employees throughout the employment cycle. This comprehensive, customizable manual is designed exclusively for medical practices and has been updated with California employment laws as of May 2018.