The importance of learning and researching the details of MACRA cannot be overstated, especially since the topic is unknown to many healthcare entities.

A patient voices a concern of privacy violation because the provider mistakenly emailed her medical treatment information to unrecognized email addresses. Your Notice of Privacy Practices correctly informs the patient of her rights under HIPAA to file a privacy complaint with your organization’s Privacy Officer and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). As the provider, how should you respond? What is your protocol for handling this patient complaint? Follow these seven steps outlined below to ensure you cover all your bases.

The number of babies who were exposed to opioids in the womb jumped by 200 percent in Florida between 2015 and 2016 — to more than 2,500 cases — the biggest spike in the past decade, according to state data. But the number of newborns statewide who were diagnosed with opioid-withdrawal symptoms known as neonatal abstinence syndrome dropped by 68 cases to 1,468, bucking the past decades’ trend of steady increase.