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The “red flags” rule is now scheduled to take effect on June 1, 2010, after another delay announced earlier this week by the Federal Trade Commission as it considers new legislation that would exempt small businesses, including medical practices, from compliance. The rule mandates the creation of identity theft prevention programs, and will apply to any organization that can be considered a creditor with “covered” accounts (i.e.-commercial accounts that involve multiple transactions). Most providers, many medical billing companies and some health plans are expected to comply.

The American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians and other industry groups have weighed in against the rule, on the basis that physicians do not meet the definition of creditors. A completely sensible argument. But medical practices need to proactively engage in some agreed-upon set of identity theft prevention practices. It’s in the best interest of consumers, not to mention practice owners, who’ll otherwise pay the price through legal costs, or through the provision of services for which they would never collect payment. Incidences of medical identity theft are increasing – enough to raise the gander of the government, which commissioned a study to assess and evaluate the scope of the problem. And smaller medical practices (which account for nearly 80 percent  of all U.S. practices) may be more vulnerable, as thieves could perceive them to be lower risk targets based on the assumption that they lack the sophisticated security procedures of hospitals or larger health care organizations.

Despite the widespread outcry from industry groups, the actual impact on a practice for complying with the red flags rule may be minimal. The new rule would simply buttress state privacy laws that already require health care organizations to respond to breaches of certain patient information. In addition, there is a great deal of overlap between the proposed FTC regulations and HIPAA, which applies to medical practices or other entities that are conducting electronic transactions.

Medical practices concerned about compliance can learn more at: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/articles/art11.shtm or http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/368/red-flags-rule-edu.pdf.

Gartner has released its 2009 Hype Cycle Report about technology trends. Cloud computing made the list. There is definitely a developing hype surrounding cloud technologies. As more and more companies jump on the cloud bandwagon, the true nature – and benefits – of these technologies become increasingly amorphous. However, concerns about the security of cloud computing as it relates to health care may have been over hyped, as well. In fact, one can easily make the argument that it is easier to monitor and maintain security in a hosted cloud model than it is for a client-server, considering that a typical application using a legacy client server is wired separately to the Internet. This makes for a distributed nightmare of a mess — with questionable protections that are potentially vulnerable. Historically, the majority of security breaches have occurred with this computing model (if not from a stolen laptop!) All you have to do is look at your own PC every time you connect to the Internet and witness the barrage of messages about virus protection to get a sense for this. Who is securing your connection and protecting your data? Some pre-packaged and potentially out of date virus protection software with some dubious firewall, or a group of top-notch engineers equipped with monitoring and protection tools more powerful than the hackers?

We are pleased to announce the winners of the Nuesoft Xpress 15-year scholarship program. Five college and university health centers each received an in-kind donation of up to $15,000 toward Nuesoft Xpress™ health center management software.  

The grant recipients are: College of San Mateo, Dominican University, Samford University, St. John Fisher College and University of Missouri – St. Louis.  

You can read more about the scholarship initiative and the winning schools here. Congratulations to all five schools! 

There has been a growing trend among college health centers toward offering student health insurance plans. With budgets being cut and costs continually rising, health centers are trying to find new ways to bring in revenue.

According to the results by the United States Government Accountability Office, about 20 percent of college students aged 18 through 23 were uninsured in 2006. It may seem, then, as through mandatory student insurance plans would be a boon for both students and administration alike, however, an article in The Capital Times reveals that many students are unwittingly left underinsured by taking the university endorsed policy. Some college-offered insurance programs offer low ceilings at $30,000 and “interior caps” on surgery and hospital stays. Many students are able to find better programs off campus.

Often, this is because colleges are torn between trying to find the right balance of affordability and quality. When shopping for a student insurance plan, Dana Mills, MPH, chair of the American College Health Association’s (ACHA’s) Student Health Insurance Task Force and director of the student health center at Wisconsin’s Marquette University makes the following suggestions:

More information on student insurance plan can be found here.

Check out the new edition of the NuesoftXpress e-Nues.  The spring edition includes an interesting article on smoke-free college campuses, and whether banning smoking in residence halls has any impact on student smoking.

The article also provides advice for administrators who are considering making their campus smoke free, such as…

• Involve smokers in the decision making process.
• Provide areas for smoking, otherwise those that cannot give it up will smoke in non-smoking areas.
• Plan for smokers in inclement weather, otherwise you will have them in doorways and under balconies when it rains. 

Nuesoft Technologies Inc. today announced the spring 2008 winners of its 15-year Anniversary Scholarship program. Five schools each received an in-kind donation of up to $15,000 of Nuesoft Xpress™ health center management software.   

The spring 2008 grant recipients are: Agnes Scott College, Barry University, Folsom Lake College, St. Norbert College and Winthrop University.   

“We were extremely pleased with the number and quality of applications that we received this spring,” said Nuesoft Technologies President and CEO Massoud Alibakhsh. “The process was very competitive, but after careful deliberation, the review committee selected the schools that had the most demonstrable need for the grants. I think the choice accurately reflects Nuesoft’s commitment to improve resources for the college health community.”  

“This is huge for our health center,” said Eileen Egan-Hineline, director of student health services at Barry University, and one of this spring’s scholarship recipients. “We have tremendous budget constraints and have not been able to stay current with technology. With a product like Nuesoft Xpress, we will be able to electronically schedule appointments and more easily analyze our school’s health care trends.”   

 “We couldn’t be happier,” said Barbara Bloomer, director of health services at St. Norbert College, which also received a grant award. “We’ve been tracking our student immunizations and other services manually, and it has been an extremely arduous and time-consuming process. Nuesoft Xpress will make us so much more efficient.” 

 The spring winners complete the first round of scholarships given out by Nuesoft. Because university budget calendars vary, Nuesoft is awarding grants in two rounds. The next five winners will be announced in the fall, with all applications reviewed by a selection committee comprised of college health professionals. 

 The deadline for the second round of applications is September 5, 2008. Fall winners will be announced on October 3.  For more information and to download the fall 2008 application, visit the Nuesoft Xpress Web site at www.nuesoftxpress.com/scholarship.

Have you ever wondered about the difference between Web-based and Internet-based practice management systems? The two terms are used interchangeably to describe what really are two very distinct operating environments. Read this Nuesoft Xpress article to learn more about the differences.