Ensuring that the lab services you bill for meet Medicare medical necessity requirements is one of the oldest challenges faced by lab compliance managers. And it doesn’t get any easier over time. The … [Read more...]
Medicare Medical Necessity Denials and How Your Lab Can Prevent Them
How to Audit the Effectiveness of Your Lab Compliance Plan
If you’re reading this, it’s a pretty good bet that you’ve put a compliance plan into place at your lab. But just how effective is it? To answer this crucial question, you must consider not only what … [Read more...]
Can You Require Lab Workers to Get the COVID-19 Vaccination?
Although it’s clearly a positive development for the world at large, the almost miraculous emergence of a vaccine for COVID-19 in less than a year poses legal challenges for employers in general and … [Read more...]
How to Create a Legally Sound Substance Abuse Policy
Bottom Line on Top: Make it all about fitness for duty, rather than zero tolerance Although it may sound good, zero tolerance may not be the best foundation on which to build a legally enforceable … [Read more...]
Use Contact Logging to Ensure Lab Employees Practice Social Distancing
Managing a lab compliance program in the age of COVID-19 poses new and unprecedented challenges. One of the biggest and most important is ensuring that lab employees and the persons they interact with … [Read more...]
How to Create a Legally Sound COVID-19 Medical Screening Policy
As essential workplaces, testing labs need to remain open and operating during the pandemic. At the same time, they need to ensure that employees practice social distancing and keep the infected and … [Read more...]
A 5-Step Game Plan for Protecting Lab Employees from COVID-19 Infection
In this time where so much is riding on diagnostic testing, labs face the imperative of safeguarding their employees against risks of COVID-19 infection. Here’s a quick overview of the applicable laws … [Read more...]
Compliance Perspectives: New Laws & the Top 5 Challenges Lab Compliance Officers Face in 2020
Labs remain at the forefront of the federal government’s suspicious persons list and health care fraud enforcement agenda. But in addition to the customary laws that labs are used to, the government … [Read more...]
Compliance Perspectives: 5 Ways to Avoid Kickback Risks When Placing Phlebotomists in Ordering Physician’s Offices
It’s not uncommon for labs to place a phlebotomist in a physician’s office to collect and process samples for testing. While not strictly illegal, this practice raises bright red flags under kickback … [Read more...]
Compliance Perspectives: Using Document Management Systems to Avoid HIPAA Pitfalls
By Andreas Rivera bio One of the most challenging aspects of HIPAA compliance is ensuring that your methods of storing lab records containing protected health information (PHI) meet all of the … [Read more...]