A Ten-Step Process

By Darrell K. Pruitt; DDS

HIPAA inspections are coming. Are you still computerized? If so, are you prepared? The fines are steep if a dentist’s [optometrist, podiatrist, allopath or osteopath’s] computer is hacked and he or she is found to be not in compliance.

About Avi Baumstein

Avi Baumstein is an information security analyst at the University of Florida’s Health Science Center in Gainesville. He posted an article recently; on InformationWeek titled “Time to Get Serious about HIPAA.” Baumstein is one expert who should know.

Link: Ten Step Process

http://www.informationweek.com/news/industry/health-care/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=214600332&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=

Mr. Baumstein notes that in October, the HHS inspector general issued a report that was sharply critical of CMS (Medicare and Medicaid) for not enforcing HIPAA security. The embarrassing dope-slap of CMS leadership causes Baumstein and other experts in the security industry to anticipate more “proactive enforcement” (unannounced inspections) in the next year. 

From his article, I am led to believe that the last prerequisite for meaningful action to enforce security is a tax-paying and otherwise acceptable nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Whoever Obama finally digs up [Kathy Sibelius] I think providers are in for significant changes. 

For example, it will be the Secretary who will ultimately decide if HIPAA inspections will be performed by new federal employees or PriceWaterhouseCoopers personnel – which was the former President’s administration’s “market approach” to helping the GDP by outsourcing policing duties, as well as accountability, to favored big businesses. (For those who are sensitive about political affiliations and become upset with me for saying unflattering things about your heroes, please don’t feel too hurt.  I’m a bi-partisan critic for natural reasons).

The ADA’s imaginary playing field and toy soldiers

“The electronic health record may not be the result of changes of our choice. They are going to be mandated. No one is going to ask, ‘Do you want to do this?’ No, it’s going to be, ‘You have to do this.’ That’s why we absolutely need the profession to be represented in the discussions about EHR to make sure our ideas are enacted to the greatest extent possible.”

ADA President-Elect Dr. John S. Findley,

In-house interview ADA News

October 7, 2008

In spite of President Findley’s manicured and traditional cause-I-say-so sound bite, the actual invisibility of ADA leadership in healthcare IT matters clearly hints that whatever happens in Obama’s healthcare reform, dentists’ and patients’ concerns stand little hope of being adequately represented by ADA representatives. 

For example, when I recently contacted CCHIT to ask about EHRs in dentistry, I was told that I was one of the first to even mention dentistry to the private and reclusive non-profit EHR certification club. I think that chunk of unexpected news blows a huge hole in President Findley’s boat. Want to see something hilariously scary in a darkly humorous way? The President’s campaign motto this time last year was “Findley for the future.” Get it?

In spite of the silent neglect of dentists’ interests by dental leaders from the top down, I would like to proclaim that there is accidental hope that future HIPAA inspectors will know more about dentistry than the jobless OSHA hired in the late 1980s during the HIV panic. I heard a rumor back then that OSHA sent an inspector to a dental office who didn’t know the difference between a microwave and an autoclave.

Panic and Urgency

Panic, a favored US government bureaucratic response, occurred when OSHA leaders found themselves suddenly under pressure from Congress over a mysterious disease that was raging out of control. Since immediate action was demanded, even if it was irrelevant and wasteful, OSHA leadership was so busy chasing shadows that it was hiring almost anyone just to cover their lower backs. Eventually, the panic subsided and yielded to a low level of common sense, thanks in large part to the intervention of the late Rep. Dr. Charlie Norwood of Georgia – a dentist and a courageous statesman. Nevertheless, because of the momentum of institutional panic, millions of healthcare dollars have been wasted on 99% superstition; incredible? Consider this.

In the last two decades, how many lives have been saved by covering dental chairs with plastic between patients? Now, how much does the effort raise dentists’ fees – thereby lowering accessibility and increasing disease and suffering among Americans? Furthermore, after each dental patient is released, the “contaminated” sheet of petroleum-based polyethylene is thrown away. I ask this: Are the reasons for inevitable environmental problems caused by regularly adding non-biodegradable plastic to the city dump based on evidence-based science? 

Of course not! This and other related acts of foolishness are nothing but lingering, costly superstition – now accepted as standard of care without proof of effectiveness. Here is how such absurdity happens: Some of those weekend miracles quickly hired by OSHA in the ‘80s went on to become prosperous and influential consultants with lots of ideas.

Since the US government is prone to panic followed much too quickly by careless and expensive overkill, national responses to adversity often stimulate lots of employment – evidence of need be damned. The OSHA surge of the 80s followed the AIDS scare. More recently, coming on the heels of the banking collapse, auditing has become one of the fastest growing fields in the industry. The feds cannot hire people with accounting skills fast enough. I contend that one should expect that for reasons and attitudes similar to those surrounding the increased funding for OSHA, it follows that news of frightening breaches of EHRs by the hundreds of thousands at a time has created a new nidus of power in a fresh, enthusiastic administration, as well as an enormous employment opportunity for anyone with knowledge of dentistry – like super-hygienists.

A hazy glimpse of the future and a promise to tie all this together soon

This brings us to a fanciful peek over the edge of the event horizon in dentistry. At the same time that HIPAA inspections of dental offices appear unavoidable, there is currently a turf war between fully licensed dentists and expanded duty “super-hygienists” who wish to be able to practice independently – limiting their invasive work to only easy fillings and simple extractions that in their assessment will not turn complicated.

Link: www.HealthcareFinancials.com

Turf Wars

This kind of war has been fought before, and physicians lost. Nurse-practitioners annexed physician turf like Sudetenland, and they are still grabbing lebensraum. CMS loves it. 

However, dentistry is different. It is my opinion that because of dental patients’ very personal reasons that include under-rated motivation from primal fear and terror, they will shun almost-dentists almost immediately – leaving graduates with huge student loan payments and lots of unused knowledge about dentistry.

Furthermore, I predict that when super-hygienists consider the expense of finishing out and leasing space at a shopping mall or department store, in addition to monthly loan payments to cover the price of dental equipment, or perhaps even the buy-in price to an insurance-sponsored dental franchise, a few will be discouraged from their initial intention to increase accessibility to dental care by lowering cost and quality.  

I think reality will cause a few super-hygienists to be readily lured from their initial goals upon entering two-year junior college programs that taught them nomenclature and the easy parts of doing dentistry. Unless they agreed to work in underserved areas in exchange for paid tuition, some will consider the benefits of working for commission for the US government as HIPAA inspectors. And later, the most successful of these will have the opportunity to continue their careers as HIPAA consultants with lots of ideas.

Are you following me so far? In conclusion, within two years, instead of real-dentists and almost-dentists being faced with uninformed HIPAA inspectors like OSHA’s shock-and-awe weekend miracle crews of the ‘80s, there will accidentally be thousands of nomenclature-savvy super-hygienists graduating across the nation looking for work about the time an acceptable HHS nominee finds his or her stride. What a story! 

Did I ever tell you that I once did a short stint as a screenplay writer? 

I guess I am being a little bit silly concerning super-hygienists, but do you see how all these pieces of history can conceivably come together at a time when the nation couldn’t be more vulnerable to wasting money on foolishness? Common sense about patients’ security is just not that common in Washington DC, and the absurdity of HIPAA is so great that the stunned silence it evokes actually causes the enforcement of folly to fit in well with the traditional Democratic tendencies of using big government to handle all possible contingencies caused by human frailties – even if that means micromanaging everyone. Who needs that? 

Every day, I am increasingly thankful that my office is not computerized. The sheet-metal box that contains my patients’ ledger cards does not have a USB port. Preparation for inspection is tricky by design.

Link: www.MedicalBusinessAdvisors.com

Assessment

Baumstein concedes that preparing for a HIPAA inspection is difficult because the law is intentionally vague:

“One goal of HIPAA was to be a one-size-fits-all, technology-neutral regulation.” 

Incredible; when you read the ten obligations Baumstein says a dentist must complete to be compliant with a vague mandate, you too may want to go back to a pegboard system – carbon paper and all.  

It seems to me that in 2003 or so, someone in the ADA Department of Dental Informatics should have warned ADA leadership about the obvious fact that as long as there is a dependable supply of cheap carbon paper in the nation, HIPAA enforcement has the potential to drive computers smoothly out of dentistry. Instead, there was silence followed by increased funding for the department’s budget, and the game was on. By 2005, at the urging of the former administration and healthcare IT stakeholder Newt Gingrich, the ADA News was posting articles pushing ADA members to quickly volunteer for irreversible NPI numbers for no good reason.  A trusting majority of members dutifully followed the tainted command. I am saddened by the loss few yet comprehend.

Link: www.HealthDictionarySeries.com

Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this Medical Executive-Post are appreciated. In bringing a close to this contiguous, here is something some may find interesting about the University of Florida, where Avi Baumstein works. Do you remember the 330,000 dental patient records that were hacked this fall from the Dental School located in Gainesville, Florida?  You guessed it; same college town – same health science center. 

And, as of last week that the dental school was still hemorrhaging patient data to who knows where. I bet by now, Baumstein knows more about HIPAA and dentistry than anyone in the nation How about you? 

Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com  or Bio: www.stpub.com/pubs/authors/MARCINKO.htm

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Filed under: Career Development, Health Law & Policy, iMBA, Inc., Information Technology | Tagged: ADA, ADA News, AMA, AOA, APMA, Avi Baumstein, CCHIT, Darrell Pruitt, EMRs, HHS, HIPAA, InformationWeek, John S. Findley, Kathy Sibelius, Newt Gingrich, NPI Numbers, obama, OSHA, Rep. Dr. Charlie Norwood | 6 Comments »