The FCA acknowledges with appreciation the assistance of the ChiroCongress (Congress of Chiropractic State Associations) in providing excellent basic information on the Cures Act for sharing with FCA members. This is the third in a series of four articles on this topic. The FCA will also be updating its HIPAA manual and other free FCA member resources to reflect necessary changes.
“Chiropractors will have a once in a lifetime opportunity that brings them into a greater role in a patient’s healthcare lifecycle. Technology will connect patient records from all licensed providers and organizations and will analyze, organize, and be distributed across the entire healthcare platform. It is the first step into connecting patients to your service, skillset and providing an all-encompassing value-based care for your patients.” - Brad Cost, CEO, Infinedi and other healthcare data analytic companies
As we have been outlining for chiropractic physicians, the 21st Century CURES Act is federal law that is designed to promote “innovation in the health care technology ecosystem to deliver better information, more conveniently, to patients and clinicians. It also promotes transparency, using modern computers, smartphones, and software to provide opportunities for the American public to regain visibility in the services, quality, and costs of health care.”
The FCA acknowledges with appreciation the assistance of the ChiroCongress (Congress of Chiropractic State Associations) in providing excellent basic information on the Cures Act for sharing with FCA members. This is the second in a series of articles on this topic. The FCA will also be updating its HIPAA manual and other free FCA member resources to reflect necessary changes.
“Hiding within those mounds of data is knowledge that could change the life of a patient, or change the world.”- Atul Butte, Stanford Medicine (July 2012)
The age of big data is already here, and the chiropractic profession will see powerful research reflecting improved patient outcomes and resulting in profession advancement. Imagine being able to have a new patient’s full medical history at your fingertips without delay. Imagine be able to review millions of patient records (protected, of course) and compare the efficacy of treatment provided in a chiropractic office against other treatments for specific diagnoses. Imagine if patients were more fully informed about their overall health treatments, along with cost comparisons and outcomes. It is within this big data world that the chiropractic profession’s contribution to the overall health of patients will soar. Previously, we struggled with how to get there, but the Cures Act has defined a method for greater inclusion, better research, and more informed patients.
The FCA acknowledges with appreciation the assistance of the ChiroCongress (Congress of Chiropractic State Associations) in providing excellent basic information on the Cures Act for sharing with FCA members. Watch for a coming series of articles on this topic. The FCA will also be updating its HIPAA manual and other free FCA member resources to reflect necessary changes.
The 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act), signed into law in 2016, was designed to help bring health care innovations to patients to provide more patient control in a value-based health system.1 Recognizing that patient access and ease of transfer of health records are key, the law includes two provisions that directly affect health care offices: 1) providers are prohibited from “information blocking” (practices that restrict transfer of information); and 2) electronic health record systems must allow for interoperability (easy interface) among different health systems. After some delays in implementation, HHS’ latest release says that the rule will now be applied starting April 5, 2021.
A new federal regulation is going to begin being enforced on April 5th, called the Information Blocking Rule. The compliance deadline for this rule was pushed back from an original enforcement date of Nov. 2020. As of that date, all covered by the rule – healthcare providers, EHR vendors, and health exchanges – are required to comply with the Information Blocking Rule. Information blocking generally means denying immediate access to patient records upon a patient’s request or by an authorized physician. An EHR company that may be holding records must make them immediately available as well.
A comprehensive telehealth bill was passed during the 2019 legislative Session, creating Florida Statute 456.47. The FCA was highly engaged on this issue to ensure that chiropractic physicians were treated equally under this new law. During the COVID-19 pandemic, you have seen an uptick in telehealth services. However, the type of chiropractic telehealth services allowed, billed, and reimbursed, are still not consistently applied between payers.
The following serves as a summary of the newly created (2019) Section 456.47, Florida Statutes (Telehealth). A large part of the law defines how out of state providers may conduct telehealth services in Florida. This law applies to Florida physicians and does not apply to how telehealth services are allowed in other states.
Before going “all in” with Telehealth, you must understand the state laws and payer limitations for telehealth services. Also consider your Consent to Treat and updating it for telehealth services.
