April 2015 | Physician Magazine

APRIL 2015

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A PUBLICATION OF PNNwww.PhysiciansNewsNetwork.com

R E P O R T I N G O N T H E E C O N O M I C S O F H E A L T H C A R E D E L I V E R Y

1 3 S T R A T E G I E S T O S A F E G U A R D Y O U R C Y B E R D A T A

Financing for your practice — and so much more

Apply for a Wells Fargo Practice Finance loan between 04/16/2015 and 06/30/2015 and, upon approval, get $250 off the documentation fee. The loan must commence funding by 07/31/2015. All financing is subject to credit approval. Business refinance program is for practice-related debt only. Existing Wells Fargo Practice Finance debt and revolving credit are not eligible for consolidation. © 2015 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Wells Fargo Practice Finance is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. SBS60-0244 (1243048_14516)

With more than 20 years of healthcare financing experience, Wells Fargo Practice Finance understands the business of running a practice and is here to help you achieve your goals.

Get up to 100% financing for a variety of business purposes:• Practice start-up and acquisition• Equipment purchases or upgrades• Office expansion, remodel, and relocation• Practice debt refinancing• Working capital

To talk to us about our other small business appreciation offers, call 1-800-359-3557, go online to wellsfargo.com/appointments to set up a convenient time to meet with a banker near you, or contact your local banker today:

Enjoy limited-time offers designed to celebrate businesses like yours

Apply by June 30, 2015, and receive $250 off the documentation fee

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APRIL 2015 | W W W. P H YS I C I A N S N E W S N E T WO R K .COM 1

Volume 146 Issue 4

Physician Magazine (ISSN 1533-9254) is published monthly by LACMA Services Inc. (a subsidiary of the Los Angeles County Medical Association) at 707 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 3800, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Periodicals Postage Paid at Los Angeles, California, and at additional mailing offices. Volume 143, No. 04 Copyright ©2012 by LACMA Services Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Physician Magazine, 707 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 3800, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Advertising rates and information sent upon request.

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10 CYBERSECURITYIn the wake of recent events,

cybersecurity is on the mind of every physician, administrator and patient. In this timely issue of Physician Magazine, we provide you with the latest news and legislative information, as well as tips to help protect your practice and patient information from cyber attacks.

6 Remote Patient Monitoring: Real-Time Patient Data, Real Liability Risks

8 Purge the Financial Paperwork: What to Keep or Trash for Taxes

14 13 Strategies to Safeguard Your Cyber Data

FROM YOUR ASSOCIATION

4 President’s Letter | Pedram Salimpour, MD

16 CEO’s Letter | Rocky Delgadillo

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Financing for your practice — and so much more

Apply for a Wells Fargo Practice Finance loan between 04/16/2015 and 06/30/2015 and, upon approval, get $250 off the documentation fee. The loan must commence funding by 07/31/2015. All financing is subject to credit approval. Business refinance program is for practice-related debt only. Existing Wells Fargo Practice Finance debt and revolving credit are not eligible for consolidation. © 2015 Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. All rights reserved. Wells Fargo Practice Finance is a division of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. SBS60-0244 (1243048_14516)

With more than 20 years of healthcare financing experience, Wells Fargo Practice Finance understands the business of running a practice and is here to help you achieve your goals.

Get up to 100% financing for a variety of business purposes:• Practice start-up and acquisition• Equipment purchases or upgrades• Office expansion, remodel, and relocation• Practice debt refinancing• Working capital

To talk to us about our other small business appreciation offers, call 1-800-359-3557, go online to wellsfargo.com/appointments to set up a convenient time to meet with a banker near you, or contact your local banker today:

Enjoy limited-time offers designed to celebrate businesses like yours

Apply by June 30, 2015, and receive $250 off the documentation fee

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SUBSCRIPTIONSMembers of the Los Angeles County Medical Association: Physician Magazine is a benefit of your membership. Additional copies and back issues: $3 each. Nonmember subscriptions: $39 per year. Single copies: $5. To order or renew a subscription, make your check payable to Physician Magazine, 707 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 3800, Los Angeles, CA 90017. To inform us of a delivery problem, call 213-683-9900. Acceptance of advertising in Physician Magazine in no way constitutes approval or endorsement by LACMA Services Inc. The Los Angeles County Medical Association reserves the right to reject any advertising. Opinions expressed by authors are their own and not necessarily those of Physician Magazine, LACMA Services Inc. or the Los Angeles County Medical Association. Physician Magazine reserves the right to edit all contributions for clarity and length, as well as to reject any material submitted. PM is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts.

The Los Angeles County Medi-

cal Association is a profes-

sional association representing

physicians from every medical

specialty and practice setting

as well as medical students,

interns and residents. For more

than 100 years, LACMA has

been at the forefront of cur-

rent medicine, ensuring that its

members are represented in the

areas of public policy, govern-

ment relations and community

relations. Through its advocacy

efforts in both Los Angeles

County and with the statewide

California Medical Association,

your physician leaders and staff

strive toward a common goal–

that you might spend more time

treating your patients and less

time worrying about the chal-

lenges of managing a practice.

LACMA’s Board of Directors consists of a group of 30 dedicated physicians who are working hard to uphold your rights and the rights of your patients. They always welcome hearing your comments and concerns. You can contact them by emailing or calling Lisa Le, Director of Governance, at [email protected] or 213-226-0304.

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4 P H YS I C I A N M AG A Z I N E | APRIL 2015

ACCORDING TO THE CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). deaths from prescription opioids each year outnumber those due to heroin, cocaine and benzodiazepine sedatives, combined. The problem has become complicated. But it is still comprehensible. While there is a great deal of opacity between doctors and the reliable (verifiable) information they have on their patients’ opioid usage, technologies such as the CURES database and EDIE (Emergency Department Information Exchange) are working to disintermediate those in the middle, making human reporting, and error, less of an impediment to patient management.

This is no small task. Los Angeles is the 17th largest economy in the world and home to about 12 million people. That means that the problem is, well, scalable. Buoyed by the abuse of easily accessible prescription drugs, this epidemic is insidiously and quietly tearing at the fabric of our community. Unfortunately, as Los Angeles goes, so goes the rest of the country.

As members of this community first, but also as representatives of the Los Angeles medical community, we are increasingly concerned about the problem of prescription drug abuse. As doctors, our mission is to provide unimpeded healthcare to individuals, but one of the biggest hindrances to providing that care safely today is self-abuse.

Every day more than 60 people in the United States die from prescription drug overdose. An unbelievable 70% of these opioids are obtained from a friend or relative. Overall, 84% of the opioids that cause unintentional deaths are obtained through a prescription, and then somehow abused or misused. Our clinical community ought to create solutions, ways to work to prevent these avoidable deaths.

What makes these numbers even more tragic is that prescription drug abuse affects mostly our youngest and most vulnerable, those between the ages of 12 and 17. For these young children, prescription drugs are easy to find, and even easier to ingest or snort by crushing, cutting or grinding. And since the opioids provide an almost instantaneous high, the potential for abuse of these formulations is intensified.

Still, the problem of prescription drug abuse isn’t just about the health of individuals. Hospital staff and resources are by necessity allocated to deal-ing with overdoses that can be prevented. Due to lost productivity, health re-sources and justice system expenditures, prescription drug abuse costs the U.S. in excess of $56 billion annually. Imagine those resources dedicated to education or medical research.

What are the viable solutions? Education and diversion programs are wonderful long- and short-term programs. But the problem also rests in the chemistry of the compounds. To help, researchers are developing abuse deterrent formulations (ADFs), medications that provide the same pain relief as conventional opioids, but contain chemical or physical properties that make crushing, cutting or grinding pointless – when manipulated, ADF blocks the instantaneous euphoric effect of the drug, making it far less enticing to abuse.

These ADFs will reduce the abuse of prescription drugs, and ultimately, along with more education and other interventions, improve the health of our community. The California Medi-cal Association (CMA) understands this, which is why in December 2014 it approved a reso-lution supporting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s ongoing efforts to evaluate and label ADF technology. The CMA also opposes the imposition of administrative roadblocks that decrease access to and coverage of prescription drugs with abuse deterrent properties.

Los Angeles is our home, and its residents are our neighbors. The abuse of prescription pills not only harms the health of our community, but puts at risk the lives of our loved ones as well – and it can be stopped. This is why our legislators ought to do whatever is necessary to create a path for abuse deterrent formulations to reach their constituents. We live in the greatest city in the world. We are on the cutting edge of a lot of things. We believe that our community deserves a chance at deterring abuse, and in leading the nation at reducing the unnecessary deaths that inevitably follow.

We support the goal of the CDC: Reduce abuse and overdose of opioids and other con-trolled prescription drugs while ensuring patients with pain are treated using safe and effec-tive means. Our clinical armamentarium for addressing this problem now includes education and diversion, but also better technology and chemistry.

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Electronic records are better than paper. The IRS accepts electronic records, so there’s typically no reason to hang on to a statement or other piece of paper just because it was issued by your bank or other financial institution. Scans of the originals are acceptable, and consider going paperless by getting your statements electronically. Make sure you back up your data and consider keeping a copy off site, either in physical form (such as on a CD or USB drive) or encrypted in the cloud.

Few documents are irreplaceable. If your big-

gest worry is that you’ll shred something you’ll need later, take heart. Most documents can be re-created. Banks and brokerages keep electronic versions of your statements for at least six years and sometimes more, though they may charge you to get new cop-ies. Your biggest risk of being audited is in the first three years after you file a tax return, although that limit can be extended to six years if you under-re-port your income by 25% or more. (You may hear tax experts say to keep paperwork for seven years. What they mean is seven years from the relevant

Fear of being audited leads many people to become paperwork pack rats. Tax season

is a good time to face those fears and free yourself of paranoia—along with that bulg-

ing filing cabinet. Here’s what you need to know so you can purge without fear.

PURGE THE FINANCIAL PAPERWORK: What to Keep or Trash for Taxes


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tax year. So if you file your 2014 return on April 15, 2015, you’ll want to keep those records until April 15, 2021—seven years from 2014.)

Some documents should be kept longer. Paperwork that relates to a potentially taxable investment or asset, such as real estate or your stock portfolio, should be kept for as long as you own the asset plus six years after you file the relevant tax return. But again, you needn’t hang on to paper—scans are fine. Many tax pros rec-ommend hanging on to your actual tax returns for life, although you’re welcome to shred the supporting doc-umentation after the audit risk has elapsed.

Keep the summaries, ditch the rest. If you’re still getting paper trade confirmations, you can discard them once you compare them to your brokerage state-ment. If your brokerage issues year-end statements, you can discard the monthly ones. You can discard pay stubs once you get your W-2 and compare it to the summary on your year-end pay stub. ATM receipts and deposit slips can be shredded if they match what’s shown on your statements. Once you reconcile cred-it or debit card receipts with your statements, keep only the ones that are needed for tax purposes or that document a major purchase. Worried you may need receipts in case of problems with smaller purchases? Set up a file each quarter for miscellaneous receipts, and discard them after six months or so have passed.

Purge your retirement accounts files. Your IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement accounts don’t qualify for capital gains tax treatment, so there’s no need to

keep track of what investments you bought when. The only thing you need to retain is documentation of any nondeductible contributions, which you should have been reporting on your annual tax returns using Form 8606. You should keep those forms indefinitely, along with the Form 5498s your IRA custodian sends you that summarize your account activity for the year. If you transfer your accounts—you roll your 401(k) into another employer’s plan or change IRA custodians—keep that paperwork as well. One other exception: if you contributed to a 403(b) account before 1987, keep your old account statements indefinitely to prove you made the contributions. This money doesn’t have to be withdrawn until age 75, while other retirement money generally has to come out earlier.

Clear out the rest. If you don’t need a document for tax purposes, you often can discard it when it’s replaced by a new one (in case of insurance policies, for example) or you no longer own the relevant item (such as receipts, warranties or owners manuals). Again, when in doubt, scan the item so you have an electronic record if it turns out you need one.

We’re still not a paperless society, and it can be a hassle to get certain documents—such as birth, marriage, death and title certificates, licenses, deeds, Social Security cards, military service records and divorce decrees—re-created if we need them. Keep these secured in a home safe or safe deposit boxSubmitted by City National Bank, http://newsroom.cnb.com


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Remote medical devices help doctors catch potential problems earlier, when they’re easier to treat, and can reduce the number of hospitalizations, improving patient health and containing healthcare costs.

Despite the many advantages, remote patient monitoring has liability risks. Because remote monitoring devices transmit patient data over the Internet or through phone lines, there is a risk of a data breach if the information is not properly encrypted.

Medical devices may be vulnerable to viruses and malware. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) noted that providers must take steps to safeguard patient information within their network, such as ensuring antivirus software and firewalls are up-to-date, monitoring the network for unauthorized use, and reporting any medical device cybersecurity problems to the device manufacturer.

If a remote device fails or malfunctions, physicians may be named in the lawsuit against the manufacturer, under the claim that the physician failed to use the device properly. Physicians should stay up-to-date on the latest information for the device, including manufacturer’s warnings, the device’s safety record and the device’s approved uses. Providers should also be aware of any FDA alerts or recalls.

Providers should also be aware of the need for additional staff members to handle the incoming data. In the case of a potential problem, these staff members should respond either directly to the patient or alert the appropriate professional for intervention. Each practice should have written guidelines for:• At what times the device will be moni-

tored.

• Which members of the care team will monitor the data at each point in time.

• Under what circumstances the appropri-ate clinician will be alerted to a potential problem.

Successful remote patient monitoring is dependent on each patient’s motivation to actively manage his or her health, as well as the patient’s ability to understand and use the technology. To help ensure patients effectively use remote devices:

• Complete and document a thorough in-formed consent process.

• Educate the patient on:

o How to use the device. Explain the treatment plan, such as at what times the device will be monitored and how alerts will be handled by the healthcare team.

o What device failure or malfunction looks like, and what the patient should do if that happens.

o How to properly maintain the device.References: 1. Report: 19 million will use remote pa-tient monitoring by 2018. MEDCITY News. http://med-citynews.com/2014/06/biggest-market-remote-patient-monitoring/. Accessed December 1, 2014; 2. Remote monitoring proven to help prolong life in patients with pacemakers. Heart Rhythm Society. http://www.hrson-line.org/News/Press-Releases/2014/05/Remote-Moni-toring-Pacemakers#_edn1. Accessed December 1, 2014.Contributed by The Doctors Company. For more patient safety articles and practice tips, visit www.thedoctors.com/patientsafety.

REMOTE PATIENT MONITORING: Real-Time Patient Data, Real Liability Risks Three million patients worldwide are currently connected to a

remote monitoring device that sends personal medical data to

their healthcare provider.1 Each year alone, 600,000 cardiac pa-

tients are implanted with pacemakers, one of the most common

monitoring devices.2

1 0 P H YS I C I A N M AG A Z I N E | APRIL 2015

BY MARION WEBB

IN THE WAKE OF RECENT EVENTS, IN PARTICULAR THE MONUMENTAL DATA BREACH AT HEALTH INSURER ANTHEM, CYBERSECURITY IS ON THE MIND OF EVERY PHYSICIAN, ADMINISTRATOR AND PATIENT. IN THIS TIMELY ISSUE OF PHYSICIAN MAGAZINE, WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH THE LATEST NEWS AND LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION, AS WELL AS TIPS TO HELP PROTECT YOUR PRACTICE AND PATIENT INFORMATION FROM CYBER ATTACKS.


RECENT BREACHES AND SENATE ACTIONInsurers aren’t required to encrypt consumers’ data under the main health privacy law—the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA—or under the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, although the latter offers incentives, ac-cording to Medical Economics reports.

The data breaches at Anthem, the nation’s second-largest health in-surer, made public in February, and the just revealed Premera Blue Cross breach has spurred a bipartisan congressional effort to re-examine HIPAA, possibly adding a costly and cumbersome requirement to encrypt health records.

The Anthem breach is the largest HIPAA violation to date and affected some 80 million people whose names, dates of birth, member ID and So-cial Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and employment information were stolen. The Premera Blue Cross breach is the second largest cyber attack in industry history, exposing the personal, financial and medical information of more than 11 million customers.

Anthem says it encrypts data it exports, but the data was stolen at the company level and was unencrypted. But even if had been encrypted, Medical Economics reported, the system administrator credentials that were stolen could have been used to access encrypted client data.

Since the Anthem incident, the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pen-sions Committee announced that it is planning to examine the security of all health information technology and the healthcare industry’s prepared-ness against cyber attacks.

OBAMA’S CYBERSECURITY PROPOSAL In light of massive cyber attacks across several industries in 2014,

which included JP Morgan Chase, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Target and The Home Depot, cybersecurity is now also a priority of the Obama administration.

The administration’s recently released cybersecurity proposal out-lines the obligations it believes companies have to notify customers of breaches. It includes a 30-day notification requirement, the creation of a national notification standard, improving information sharing between private sector and the government and bolstering law enforcement’s abil-ity to combat cybercrime.

Some healthcare experts believe, however, that the cybersecurity wish list offers few specifics for the healthcare industry, which is expected to see more phishing and malware attacks this year, iHealthBeat forecasted.

Angela Rose, director of health information management practice ex-cellence at the American Health Information Management Association, told iHealthBeat it’s too early to predict the proposal’s effect on health-care organizations.

She noted, however, that the administration’s data sharing plan, which encourages sharing information between private entities and the Depart-ment of Homeland Security, requires private companies to remove “un-necessary personal information” from shared data.

This, she said, raises the question whether such information will map the HIPAA definition of protected health information or include other ele-ments such as credit card information.

Another part of the legislative package that needs sorting out is the

BY MARION WEBB

IN THE WAKE OF RECENT EVENTS, IN PARTICULAR THE MONUMENTAL DATA BREACH AT HEALTH INSURER ANTHEM, CYBERSECURITY IS ON THE MIND OF EVERY PHYSICIAN, ADMINISTRATOR AND PATIENT. IN THIS TIMELY ISSUE OF PHYSICIAN MAGAZINE, WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH THE LATEST NEWS AND LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION, AS WELL AS TIPS TO HELP PROTECT YOUR PRACTICE AND PATIENT INFORMATION FROM CYBER ATTACKS.


healthcare breach notification standard, which currently is governed by differing state laws and also differs from HIPAA’s requirement for covered entities, iHealthBeat reported.

The White House proposal states that businesses must notify individu-als affected by a data breach within 30 days; HIPAA requires businesses to notify individuals within 60 days of the discovery of a breach.

The proposal wouldn’t immediately impact healthcare organizations covered under HIPAA, the experts said.

Lynn Sessions, a partner with the law firm BakerHostetler who special-izes in healthcare data security and breach response, noted that a few states have breach notification laws on the books that are more restrictive than HIPAA and its 60-day standard.

Some offer an exemption for HIPAA-covered entities, while others in-clude healthcare data within the scope of their notification laws, he said.

The Florida Information Protection Act, effective since 2014, includes medical history, treatment and diagnosis information, health insurance policy numbers and subscriber identification numbers as “protected in-formation” subject to its breach notification requirement, which is within 30 days.

Sessions is a proponent of a single breach notification law, pre-empt-ing other directives.

Another unresolved issue the experts noted is the treatment of business associates, such as vendors, who often have little healthcare experience.

The financial services industry has had a data sharing mechanism in place for more than a decade. The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center provides a global cybersecurity resource. Healthcare is moving in that direction as well with the creation of the National Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center in 2014, iHealthBeat reported.

THREATS ON THE RISE; CONSUMER CONFIDENCE LOW

One issue that all experts can agree on is that the threat of data breaches is higher than ever before.

According to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute, as reported by Clinical Innovation & Technology, 20% more medical identity thefts oc-curred in fiscal year 2014 compared to the year prior.

In the annual study of 49,000 adults, which aims to determine the ef-fects and pervasiveness of identity theft in the U.S., 79% said they felt it was important for providers to ensure the privacy of their medical data, and 68% said that they did not have confidence in their providers’ security measures.

Researchers also noted that 35% of consumers were “not familiar” with HIPAA and privacy standards related to security data.

To reduce medical identity theft, the study authors recommended that “healthcare providers and insurance providers help consumers gain more control over their medical records,” according to published reports.

Some people believe that organizations should do more to protect patients’ data, which would help raise consumer confidence and also help thwart off cyber attacks.

Indeed, the Ponemon Institute also found that, on average, provider organizations spend about 3% of an organization’s IT budget on secu-rity issues, which is low compared to other regulated industries such as banking.

On Jan. 29, Anthem Inc. learned of massive cyber attacks on the company’s IT system and the data stored within the system. Since Anthem is one of the larg-est healthcare insurance companies in the United States, the cyber attack had spe-cial implications for physicians and the millions of their patients whose personal healthcare information was stored on An-them servers.

However, Anthem reported that there was no evidence that medical informa-tion was breached. In a statement on its website, Anthem noted that “there [is no] evidence at this time that medical infor-mation such as claims, test results, or diag-nostic codes was targeted or obtained.”

Equally important to physicians, ac-cording to Anthem spokesperson Darrel Ng, “There was no breach of provider data, no data about physicians” accessed during the cyber attack. Ng confirmed that, in some cases, Anthem may have physician Social Security numbers on file as a physician may use the Social Security number as a tax ID number.

“That depends on what the provider gives Anthem,” Ng noted. None of that physician data was breached, according to Ng.

Ng noted that physicians would ben-efit by the additional security measure now in place at Anthem following the at-tack. “For example,” Ng said, “administra-tors at Anthem now need three levels of authentication to access the system. This will better protect physician data Anthem has in its system.”

Asked about any lessons learned from the attacks, Ng said the company prefers to wait until the full investigation into the matter is complete before providing any lessons learned commentary.

Anthem is continuing to alert indi-viduals impacted by the data breach via surface mail at the rate of several million people per day, according to Ng. Fur-ther, Anthem has arranged for immediate identity repair and assistance and longer term credit monitoring for all those indi-viduals impacted by the attack.

As for ongoing operations, Ng said the company is continuing to pay claims with-out interruption. However, he noted that “Anthem has tightened security and will continue to examine the system to make sure patient information is protected.”


MOBILE HEALTH PRIVACY TOP CONCERN FOR ADOPTIONA global survey of 144 healthcare leaders working in public and private healthcare sectors,

including life sciences, found that the adoption of potentially life-saving mobile health devices is also hampered by consumers’ privacy concerns, HealthIT Security recently reported.

The majority of health executives, 64%, said that new mobile technologies that provide greater patient access to medical information would “dramatically improve health outcomes,” with 63% reporting that they could help patients make better health decisions on their own.

But barriers prevail. Half of the respondents in the public sector raised concerns about pa-tients misinterpreting their own data and then making poor decisions and recognized that pri-vacy is a major concern for consumers.

“In addition, companies worry that regulators will struggle to keep up with the fast pace of technological innovation, leading to long delays before new devices are approved,” the report’s authors noted, according to hitconsultant.net.

Yet, of the respondents that use mobile features, the majority, or 58%, said they use email, text messages and social media to communicate with medical providers, 44% to access and manage their personal health records and 44% to locate, buy and manage healthcare services and products.

The respondents expect patients’ ability to access and manage health records via mobile devices to remain the same. Half of the respondents were confident that five years from now, mHealth infrastructure will remove reimbursement and revenue barriers and be able to increase patient contact.

CONCLUSIONHealthcare security experts predict that in the new

electronics world, breaches will be found on many fronts, and medical identity theft will become big business.

The New York Times in a recent article cited one security expert who noted that in one black market auction, a patient medical record sold for $251, which compared to credit cards selling for only 33 cents.

Last year, 18 healthcare providers reported data breaches due to hacking, the article said. Among the companies and organizations that had data breaches were Centura Health and a student health center at the University of California, Irvine.

The Anthem breach has become the subject of intense regulatory scrutiny. And the National Associa-tion of Insurance Commissioners, a group of state in-surance regulators, planned a multistate examination of the insurer, according to reports.

But security experts said that doctor practices and organizations need to become more proactive in pro-tecting their systems from cyber attacks.

A 2014 report by Forrester Research estimated that only 59% of healthcare organizations have imple-mented any type of data encryption.

Implementing defense strategies, monitoring Internet-connected devices, training employees on the importance of security and notifying patients of how their data will be used are all critical steps to safeguarding your practice and instilling consumer confidence.


TO HELP YOU PROTECT YOUR OR-

GANIZATION FROM EVOLVING

THREATS, HERE ARE 13 EXPERT-

RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES TO

SAFEGUARD YOUR INFORMATION:

13 STRATEGIES TO SAFEGUARD YOUR CYBER DATA

1. Having strong internal and external firewalls, ac-cess control measures, antivirus solutions and phishing filters are important IT measures to pre-vent attacks, but policies and procedures and em-ployee education are just as important and often cheaper.

2. Start by assessing your risk for a cyber attack. Have solid processes in place to identify your risk with new systems, devices, services and partners and determine how to best use their power as pur-chases and weed out those that don’t meet your best security practices.

3. Everyone needs to play a role in information se-curity systems, said Kamal Govindaswamy from the RisknCompliance Consulting Group. But he believes that health IT managers and leaders are key to making security programs effective. He said accurate inventory of data and how to protect it is a problem for many healthcare organizations. He proposes that businesses assign ownership and accountability of the health IT leadership and in-sist on independence for the chief information se-curity officer or equivalent. Smaller organizations may have one owner who is accountable and re-sponsible for the IT assets, regardless of whether they are leased or owned or subscribed, and that person needs to be proactive at all times. Every physical and virtual asset (network device, server, storage, app, database) must have an assigned owner at a manager/director/VIP level.

4. Organizations should conduct “mock scenarios” with a clear roadmap for where it should divert re-sources to eliminate tech vulnerabilities.

5. Employees are vulnerable too and as such should be given adequate training to recognize when hackers have breached their network or are cas-ing it to find a way in. They should also be edu-cated on how to take precautions when traveling with a work computer that has sensitive data.

6. If an employee is terminated, human resources should follow up with IT staff to make sure that the individual’s network access has been terminated.

7. Also, companies that have access to patient data should spell out how the contractor will protect the information and respond in the event of an at-tack.

8. Make incident response management a priority. Organizations should make use of smart and pur-pose-built software automation for assessing inci-dents and managing responses to better mitigate risks to their patients, reputation and bottom line, according to Government Health IT.

9. Control your workflow and minimize workforce access. This includes safeguarding it from imper-missible uses and disclosures.

10. Smaller companies need to be particularly cau-tious because they often don’t have the resources to devote to security and compliance, Govern-ment Health IT reported. They should turn to third-party vendor management to strengthen oversight and review processes.

11. Both the healthcare industry and its technology service providers need to dramatically improve how they take advantage of existing technologies as well as how they design, construct and deliver new tools. This is also key when it comes to health-related mobile apps, which are being introduced at a phenomenal pace, but often without enough consideration for privacy.

12. The government says that healthcare industries need to get better at determining key metrics to continuously measure and improve security.

13. Voicemail systems, customer service call record-ing systems and closed-circuit television systems could all potentially be storing protected health information data that may not be as carefully pro-tected as traditional IT systems.

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CEO’s LETTER

WITH LOS ANGELES County’s outdoor temperatures rising, the local physician calendar of events is also heating up. April marks a particularly exciting month for key events, and there is something of interest for every LACMA member.

The calendar kicks off on the evening of April 3 with the 31st Annual Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA) Western Regional Conference at the USC Health Sciences Campus. The LMSA conference is the culmination of a student movement that began in the 1960s to bring healthcare to underserved communities. Today, medical students from across the nation continue to work hard to ensure that medical education remains accessible especially for those interested in serv-ing those communities. The conference kicks off with a networking event from 5 to 8 p.m. on April

3 and then proceeds from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 4 with breakfast, a welcom-ing and opening keynote address by Althea Alexander, assistant dean, Minority Student Affairs, Keck School of Medicine, and breakout sessions covering topics such as the Affordable Care Act, healthcare for the LGBT community, surgical case studies and translational research, according to their website (lmsa.site-ym.com).

Then, on April 14, California physicians will have the great opportunity to meet with their local legislators in person and discuss some of the most pressing healthcare issues of today.

The California Medical Association is inviting members to attend the 41st An-nual Legislative Advocacy Day (formerly known as Legislative Leadership Confer-ence) at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento.

More than 400 physicians, medical students and CMA Alliance members are expected to travel to Sacramento to lobby their legislative leaders and champi-ons for medicine and their patients. You don’t want to miss this key event.

If you’re a female physician, you want to mark April 25 for a special daytime session titled “Women and Money.” Hosted by LACMA’s Women Physicians Ac-tion Committee, this event will give you all the tools you need to make wise deci-sions concerning all your accounting needs, financial planning and contract ne-gotiations. The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check LACMA’s event calendar online for location, and register today by contacting [email protected].

Another LACMA event not to be missed takes place on April 29. The Ambu-latory Care Centers Committee Vendor Fair & Panel Discussion from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel features a panel of expert speakers that will touch on these key issues: accredita-tion of surgery centers, reimbursement of claims and physician intimidation. Contact LACMA to learn more and to register today.

Spring forward by attending one or more of these key events to learn about the critical issues of the day and to make your voices heard.

We are proud to continue to serve our members by presenting pertinent events hosted by experts in their respective fields. We want to ensure that all physicians’ issues are being heard and addressed and that their voices are being carried into the wider community to provide the outstanding service our patients deserve and expect.

We urge you to encourage other physicians to join LACMA today so we can stand united be-hind our growing organization.

Rocky DelgadilloChief Executive Officer



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