Practice Management Tips from OCMA Preferred Business Partners
Don’t be a Victim of Ransomware like Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital and pay over $17,000 to Hackers!
WHAT TO DO TO MINIMIZE THE IMPACT OF RANSOMWARE INFECTION
- Backup your computer regularly and keep a recent backup copy off-site. There are dozens of ways other than ransomware that files can suddenly vanish, such as fire, flood, theft, a dropped laptop or even an accidental delete. Encrypt your backup and you won’t have to worry about the backup device falling into the wrong hands.
- Don’t enable macros in document attachments received via email. Microsoft deliberately turned off auto-execution of macros by default many years ago as a security measure. A lot of malware infections rely on persuading you to turn macros back on, so don’t do it!
- Be cautious about unsolicited attachments. The crooks are relying on the dilemma that you shouldn’t open a document until you are sure it’s one you want, but you can’t tell if it’s one you want until you open it. If in doubt, leave it out.
- Don’t give yourself more login power than you need. Most importantly, don’t stay logged in as an administrator any longer than is strictly necessary, and avoid browsing, opening documents or other “regular work” activities while you have administrator rights.
- Patch early, patch often. Malware that doesn’t come in via document macros often relies on security bugs in popular applications, including Office, your browser, Flash and more. The sooner you patch, the fewer open holes remain for the crooks to exploit.
- If you get infected, call a professional firm to help you with Incident Response.he Internal Revenue Service has finally issued regulations clarifying when costs related to fixed assets must be capitalized and when they can be expensed.
Contact: Abdi Ahmed
(949) 752-6788, ext 22, or abdi@netservesystems.net
www.netservesystems.net
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ASC Peer Review: The Clock Starts Running January 1, 2016
12/8/2015
Effective, January 1, 2016, all Ambulatory Surgery Centers will be required to conduct peer review on their physicians every two years. Senate Bill 396 will have the greatest impact on smaller ASCs, including physician-owned facilities with just a single physician on staff. Larger ASCs, those with more than 25 physicians, are already required to conduct peer review under the general language of the peer review statute, California Business & Professions Code § 805 et seq. Other ASCs may also conduct peer review to satisfy accreditation or corporate requirements. For those who are not, it will be a new day, marking the further emergence of ASCs as a force in health care delivery.
A New Twist on Peer Review
Although the two-year timeframe suggests that the peer review required by the new law is only the biennial privilege renewal process used in hospitals, it is not. Nor is it the same prosecutorial style peer review conducted by hospital Medical Staffs, which is typically initiated in response to a specific patient care incident or complaint. Even though the definition of peer review in the new law is identical to the definition of peer review in the peer review statute, the new law requires something different. Under the new law, every ASC staff member must be peer reviewed at least every two years, without regard to whether or not there has been a patient care complaint or sentinel event. This is variation on current peer review practices and is a close equivalent to the Ongoing Professional Practice Evaluation (“OPPE’) that is a routine peer review tool utilized by hospital medical staffs and required by the Joint Commission. As the name suggests, this is not a process to be left to the end of 2018. The two-year deadline in the new law is the end of a process that ought to start immediately.
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Contributed by Nossman, LLP. For more information, visit www.nossaman.com
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