Abstract The purpose of this White paper is to describe Blockchain technology [1] and exhibit its relevance in US Healthcare Insurance Industry as a Ledger and accounting system. Using Blockchain network to manage payments between insurers and providers can reduce redundancies across the entire Healthcare industry. This document also talks about the challenges in existing transaction capabilities within Healthcare insurance and how Blockchain can bridge those gaps through efficiency and transparency. Blockchain with its multi-signatures and cryptography poses itself as a strong solution to avoid frauds and avoid leaks of sensitive information like disease, treatment and patient information. Not just for financial transactions, it can also be …show more content…
Some businesses made fortune by inserting themselves in the middle of transactions as trusted mediators and extracted some of the value from the transaction (e.g. Uber, Ola, Visa, MasterCard or any retail bank). These mediators did a good job but they add to cost and are centralized in nature and anything that's centralized is vulnerable. In Healthcare Insurance world, Anthem Inc. (previously known as WellPoint Inc.) became victim of largest Healthcare data leak which affected As many as 80 million customers. Background Blockchain was conceptualized by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and implemented in 2009 as the public ledger for all transactions for digital currency Bitcoin [2]. Even those who are cynical of Bitcoins future mentioned that Blockchain technology has a very bright future. Some suggest Blockchain technology as the second generation of the internet. Blockchain got the spotlight again in 2015 when companies like IBM, Intel, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo came together and announced about their intent to create their own version of open-source Blockchain. This collaboration is aiming to tweak features in the Blockchain concept in order to make it appropriate for their own
As the evolution of healthcare from paper documentation to electronic documentation and ordering, the security of patient information is becoming more difficult to maintain. Electronic healthcare records (EHR), telenursing, Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE) are a major part of the future of medicine. Social media also plays a role in the security of patient formation. Compromising data in the information age is as easy as pressing a send button. New technology presents new challenges to maintaining patient privacy. The topic for this annotated bibliography is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Nursing informatics role is imperative to assist in the creation and maintenance of the ease of the programs and maintain regulations compliant to HIPAA. As a nurse, most documentation and order entry is done electronically and is important to understand the core concepts of HIPAA regarding electronic healthcare records. Using keywords HIPAA and informatics, the author chose these resources from scholarly journals, peer reviewed articles, and print based articles and text books. These sources provide how and when to share patient information, guidelines and regulation d of HIPAA, and the implementation in relation to electronic future of nursing.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, is a law designed “to improve portability and continuity of health insurance coverage in the group and individual markets, to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery, to promote the use of medical savings accounts, to improve access to long-term care services and coverage, to simplify the administration of health insurance, and for other purposes.”1 HIPAA mandates that covered entities must employ technological means to ensure the privacy of sensitive information. This white paper intends to study the requirements put forth by HIPAA by examining what is technically necessary for them to be implemented, the technological feasibility of this, and what commercial, off-the-shelf systems are currently available to implement these requirements.
Healthcare professionals associated with medical billing and coding know the progress the technology has made so far. In the last few decades, medical billing and coding has switched from being a paper-based system to a computerized format. Under HIPAA laws, medical practitioners had to develop new software in order to send out electronic bills. With the advent of electronic medical records (EMR), with one touch of a button, doctors, Nurse Practitioners and PAs can gain access to all the care a patient has ever received from every healthcare facility the patients visited previously and can figure out possible illnesses. This enables statistical documentation of the population as a whole as well. EMR can also make the healthcare system more transparent and allow integration with reimbursement data. As the healthcare system changes, this will prevent unnecessary costs and make it easier to get the reimbursements needed to treat a patient.
“An electronic health record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient’s paper chart. EHRs are real-time, patient-centered records that make information available instantly and securely to authorized users.” (healthit.gov) The EHR mandate was created “to share information with other health care providers and organizations – such as laboratories, specialists, medical imaging facilities, pharmacies, emergency facilities, and school and workplace clinics – so they contain information from all clinicians involved in a patient’s care.” ("Providers & Professionals | HealthIT.gov", n.d., p. 1) The process has proved to be quite challenging for providers. As an incentive, the government began issuing payments to those providers who “meaningfully use certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.” (hhs.gov) There are three stages that providers must progress through in order to receive theses financial incentives. Stage one is the initial stage and is met with the creation and implementation of the HER in the business. Stage two “increases health information exchange between providers.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) Stage three will be the continuation and expansion of the “meaningful use objectives.” ("United States Department of Health and Human Services | HHS.gov", n.d., p. 1) The hospital, where I work, initiated the HER mandate many years ago. In this paper, I will discuss the progression and the challenges that my hospital encountered while implementing the EHR mandate.
To Kill a Mockingbird, the novel by Harper Lee embodies a work of Southern literature, set in the 1930s in a small town in Alabama. The book’s genre exemplifies a coming-of-age historical fiction story. The narrator, a young girl named Scout Finch, describes the lessons she and her brother Jem learn when their father, a lawyer named Atticus, defends an African American man who stands accused of raping a white woman. The novel’s premise revolves around the efforts of a father raising his children and guiding them in their moral development. Along the way, the book deals with the themes of courage, prejudice and maturity. These three concepts are defined differently by Atticus than by most of the other people in the town where he lives. According to Atticus, courage means doing what remains as right and resisting what remains as wrong, even if other people oppose you. In contrast to the prejudice of the townspeople, Atticus believes it important to treat everyone equally. Maturity, in Atticus’ view, refers to having a sense of conscience and seeking to protect those who remain innocent. As these definitions show, Atticus Finch displays a strong sense of ethics. His goal as a parent remains to pass his values on to his children. This paper will argue that Scout and Jem learn the true meanings of courage, prejudice and maturity through the influence of their father and the example he sets for them.
The symbolism and imagery used in the short stories paints a vivid picture into the author’s train of thought. Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Shirley Jackson were not normal writers. The stories are a form of gothic writing. This paper will be analyzing the point of view, symbolism, and setting in the stories The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
The new healthcare technology that is spreading nationwide it the EHR programs that are being implemented and updated in healthcare organizations. Government policies are in place for societies protection and privacy, it also helps to create a place where healthcare information can be utilized to its fullest potential. ONC authors’ regulations that set the standards and certification criteria EHRs must meet to assure health care professionals and hospitals that the systems they adopt are capable of performing certain functions (HealtIt, 2015).
The history of the internet takes us back to the pioneering of the network and the development of capable technologies. The explosion of the internet’s popularity of the 1990’s was large and dramatic, boosting our economy and then helped to bring it into a major recession. One can only hope that the explosion becomes organized and slightly standardized in the interest of the general public. Despite all of these conjectures and speculations only time can tell the future of the largest network in the world.
One of the largest parts of commerce is transaction. Transactions are needed anytime two parties exchange money or information. Since the Information Age has begun, transactions are more common over the Internet, where it is more imperative that transactions are secure (Klein x). Corporations have also become more widespread, which means that cryptography is needed to secu...
This system helps all of these banks provide financial secrecy which is that only you and your banker would legally be allowed to know the financial activity within your account. The financial secrecy, completely different from financial privacy, includes many regulations to maintain this asset of secrecy. For example, many banks would n...
Payment cards - They include stored financial value that can be moved from the customer's computer to the businessman's computer.
receiving money by means of computers in an easy, secure and fast way using an account-based system. This can be
Communication modern technological tools that have been enhanced by Information Technology are having an impact on changing the very structure and communication of banking. That is, clients are enabled to make their banking transactions whenever and wherever they want. Bank clients, by just logging on their online account, can transfer any amount of money from their account to any other account, check their last processed banking transactions and apply for loans and other banking services. According to Keyes ( 2000, p.591) 'electronic checks provide consumers with the benefits of convenience and safety while allowing billers to maintain their existing depository relationships with their banks'. Further, e-mails has enabled bank employees to notify their customers of any new enhanced bankin...
...ng an acceptable form of transaction.Governments need to be more transparent to the public.A lot of ‘under table’ transaction take place in the most basic everyday services(passport,license, tax).Such services has the capability to go online reducing the red tape as money is only used via online transaction.
One of the reasons why banks adopted this new system, was the ‘boom’ in online shopping and the need for an online payment platform. For the bank themselves, online banking reduces customer service staffing levels, as well as improving speed and flexibility of business transactions. (Shih and Fang, 2004)