Healthcare Issues

Health Care Issues

Introduction

Many issues are raised in health care unit that is the reason government makes law and policy for benefits of patients and health care professionals. According to Stark law, Physicians were prohibited from referring designated health care services (DHS) to health care providers, and health care providers were prohibited from submitting a claim or billing for DHS referrals from physicians.

In 1992, Florida patient self referral act was passed. The basic assumption of this act is physicians prefer more medical tests and pay more money for availing health care when they contain financial interest in facilities of health care. According to these act physicians has strict prohibition which is related to health services such as laboratory tests, physiotherapy, several forms of diagnostic tests and radiation therapies services.

The HIPAA regulations were instituted to protect the privacy of individuals by safeguarding individually identifiable healthcare records, including those housed in electronic media. Protection of individual medical records extends not only to clinical healthcare sites but also to all ancillary healthcare providers, such as pharmacies, laboratories, and third-party payers. Each healthcare provider dealing with client healthcare data must provide for secure and limited access to the information.

Title VII OF THE Civil Rights Act of 1964, basically prohibited employment discrimination on the bases of race, gender and color in healthcare. This act focus on the equality rights for all employees in health care. Everybody has right to work in all fields of professions and pursuit their dreams.

Module No 11

Stark Law

The Stark law is a strict liability statute and does not require any showing of intent in order for a violation to occur. Therefore, if a physician refers a Medicare patient for DHS to an entity with which the physician has an ownership or compensation relationship, the arrangement must be structured to meet an applicable exception to the Stark law.

Prior to the implementation of the Stark law restriction on under arrangements relationships, a physician's ownership interest in a company performing DHS under arrangements (such as the physician's practice) did not need to meet a Stark exception (Wolper, 2009).

There are very few Stark exceptions available for physician ownership in DHS entities, and it appears that none would be applicable to DHS provided under arrangements to a hospital unless the services are provided in a rural area pursuant to the Stark law exception for rural providers. As a result, arrangements with physician owned entities, such as physician practices, to provide DHS under arrangements to hospitals were essentially prohibited effective(HFMA, 2011).

Florida Patient Self Referral Act

This act prevents a physician from refer patients for availing services of health care to his own interest. According to these act physicians has strict prohibition which is related to health services such as laboratory tests, physiotherapy, several forms of diagnostic tests and radiation therapies services.

Florida need a clear understanding of the new legislation, including its reporting requirements for a statewide prescription drug monitoring database; penalties for doctors who overprescribe painkillers; requirements for pain clinics to register with the state; ...