Office of the Inspector General (OIG)

See the following -

Attorney: Cloud Vendor Contracts Wrought With Pitfalls

Marla Durben Hirsch | Fierce EMR | April 7, 2014

Despite the surge by providers to cloud-based electronic health record systems, cloud vendor contracts still are wrought with pitfalls and "threats", according to attorney Steven Fox with Post & Schell, who spoke April 4, on a webinar sponsored by the American Bar Association's Health Law Section.  "All cloud providers are not created equal," he warned.

Read More »

Don't Overlook Fraud In EHRs, OIG Cautions CMS

Jacqueline Fellows | HealthLeaders Media | January 9, 2014

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has eagerly pushed EHRs onto healthcare providers without adequately addressing the risk of fraud, suggests a report from the Office of Inspector General. Read More »

Nurses' Union Knocks EHRs Hard

Bernie Monegain | Healthcare IT News | May 27, 2014

An image on the National Nurses United website highlights the campaign slogan. Launches national campaign to call attention to risks of healthcare IT Read More »

OIG: Medicare Could Have Saved $910M On Lab Tests

Ashley Gold | FierceHealthcare | June 12, 2013

Medicare could have saved $910 million--38 percent--on lab test payments if it would have paid providers at the lowest established rate in each geographic area, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General. Read More »

Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.

Press Release | Johns Hopkins Medicine | May 3, 2016

Analyzing medical death rate data over an eight-year period, Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Their figure, published May 3 in The BMJ, surpasses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) third leading cause of death — respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year. The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates.

Read More »

VA Schedulers Failed To Fully Use Wait List Software Created in 2002

Bob Brewin | Nextgov.com | June 10, 2014

More than 70 percent of 3,772 patient-scheduling staffers at 731 medical facilities in the Veterans Health Administration did not fully use scheduling software originally developed in 2002, according to a Department of Veterans Affairs report highlighting lengthy wait times for veterans seeking health care appointments...

Read More »