Posts Tagged: PHI

Acquisition Analytics Reports: Third-Party, Unbiased Reviews Before You Buy

Posted by & filed under Healthcare, Pharmacy.

acquisition analytics

For any person that considers investing in or buying a business, you want to do your due diligence. Ultimately, you need to know if what you’re buying is and can be profitable. In healthcare, much of what buyers want to quantify is the probability of patient retention. To make this assessment, you can ask for data to gauge this, but it could contain omissions or inaccuracies. With acquisition analytics, you receive a third-party, unbiased review, helping you make the best decision. 

What Is an Acquisition Analytics Report?

An acquisition analytics report is a business intelligence assessment of a pharmacy’s or healthcare practice’s financials and patient data. It typically covers the past two years. An analytics provider retrieves the data directly from a pharmacy software system or health information system (HIS). It’s a redacted report with no PHI (protected healthcare information) containing various data elements.

Data elements that make up a report:

  • Average weekly scripts, volume, or patient visits
  • Percentage of new vs. returning patients 
  • Prescriber information (pharmacy)
  • Number of “high value” patients (patients with a large number of scripts or visits)
  • Patient location
  • Payer information (private and public)
  • Percent of controlled scripts (pharmacy) to discern if there’s any risk

The report presents this information to you with comparisons of year over year. From this, you can spot trends and patterns. You’ll gather insights on profits, volume, and more. 

Why Request an Acquisition Analytics Report?

Having access to such a report provides transparency in the process. The provider of the report is pulling real, live data with no manipulation. It’s one of the best approaches to sizing up an investment. Just as you wouldn’t buy a house without an inspection or appraisal, the same goes for buying a pharmacy or healthcare practice.

It’s an integral part of the decision-making process. It complements your other valuation efforts and gives you a broad picture of future profitability. 

How to Choose a Report Provider

Many firms specialize in acquisition analytics. They commonly provide reports in mergers and acquisitions. However, most don’t have healthcare-specific expertise. So, while a company may have years of experience in business intelligence, healthcare is different. 

Here’s why:

  • PHI: Any healthcare report must meet compliance factors regarding PHI. Not all organizations will understand or have processes in place to remain HIPAA compliant.
  • Pharmacy systems and HIS: If a company is going to provide this kind of report, they need to have great familiarity with how such systems work. It’s not the same as a balance sheet or other financial evaluations. 

Thus, it’s a good idea to tap an analytics partner that routinely provides these kinds of reports. They should be able to give you a sample and discuss how they protect PHI. Asking these questions gives you peace of mind that the information is accurate and unbiased.

Make the Best Decision with the Best Data

good decision

Every potential business buyer wants to have as much information as possible to make the best decision. A clear and impartial report on the health of the business is critical for you to move ahead with confidence. 

If you’d like to learn more about our acquisition analytics solutions, contact us today. We also offer a turnkey approach to pharmacy transitions for buyers. Download our product sheet to see all we offer. 

HIPAA Compliance Checklist: What Employees Need to Know

Posted by & filed under Healthcare.

HIPAA compliance checklist

In the realm of healthcare, HIPAA compliance is always a key character in how it’s stored, shared, and handled. As an organization, you may have HIPAA compliance standards in place, but are your employees following or aware of the rules? Employee training and education are critical to adherence, so if you aren’t sure what your employees know, start with this HIPAA compliance checklist.

HIPAA Compliance Is Complex but Should Be Standardized

While the provisions and language of the law are quite complex, adhering to it doesn’t have to be complicated. Unfortunately, the number of complaints continues to trend up. In the past four years on record, the total cases have increased steadily, with a total of 25,089 for 2018, according to the Office of Civil Rights (OCR).

HIPAA was designed to set up industry-wide standards regarding PHI to protect patients and reduce fraud and abuse. Every employee has a role to play in HIPAA compliance, and training and education should be a part of everyone’s onboarding. Employees can often be the “weak” link in breaches or security incidents—the more they know, the less likely they’ll be to make such errors.

The Employee HIPAA Compliance Checklist

HIPAA compliance for employees
  • Does every partner that you share PHI with have a valid Business Associate Agreement (BAA)? Employees must be aware of the importance of a BAA before entering into partnerships.
  • Have you assessed your risk? To evaluate risk and audit your processes, you should follow the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidelines. When you find weaknesses, your team then needs to develop a remediation plan to address them.
  • Are your PHI policies distributed and communicated? To ensure that all employees handle PHI appropriately, you must have procedures in place, and they need to be accessible. You have to do more than just hand them a document. You must track and document that they have read and understood them.
  • Do you have a HIPAA training plan? Every employee should undergo training on HIPAA. Educating and empowering your team with knowledge not only keeps your company compliant but makes them mindful of all their interactions with protected data. You’ll also want to document the training process and continue to improve it as regulations change, and your company grows. 
  • Do you have an incident response plan? Breaches in healthcare data are a regular occurrence. While you hope it doesn’t happen to you, you must have a plan to respond to an incident. This plan needs to be communicated to all parties, so they know their roles. Be prepared to mitigate and contain the risk.

Be HIPAA Ready with Every Transaction

Your employees are your most valuable assets, but human error is still the leading cause of HIPAA noncompliance. By using this HIPAA compliance checklist, you can reduce risk and ensure that PHI is safe and protected.

Introducing PHI Data Sharing

Posted by & filed under Healthcare, InfoWerks News.

phi data sharing

As a pioneer in healthcare data management, we are always looking to expand our capabilities to meet the changing needs of our customers. PHI data sharing has become a significant challenge for hospitals and healthcare systems. With our services, you can cut costs and accelerate implementations. As your data liaison, we’ll help you move data internally, to a new application, or a third-party securely and compliantly. 

The Challenge with PHI Data Sharing

Moving sensitive data can be a burden on internal IT teams. Lack of bandwidth can compromise your organization’s ability to complete implementations on-time and on budget. Reduce the time and cost of PHI transfers with encrypted, secure, and compliant data sharing services from InfoWerks. With over two decades of healthcare data management experience, we have a deep understanding of PHI and how it’s stored in applications, ensuring your data is always in good hands. 

Our Data Sharing Services

data sharing for healthcare

Use our data sharing services to help with these applications, programs, and initiatives: 

  • 340B Programs 
  • Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) 
  • Population Health Management 
  • Chronic Condition Management 
  • Decision Support System 
  • Specialty EMRs 
  • Predictive Analytics 
  • Business Intelligence (BI) Platforms 
  • LIS (Laboratory Information Systems) 
  • HIS (Health Information Systems) 
  • HEDIS Reporting 

Why Partner with InfoWerks

As a data management company with a healthcare-centric approach, we can offer solutions that other vendors cannot. Here’s why we’re different: 

  • Robust security: We encrypt using AES256 while data is in transit or at rest, ensuring HIPAA compliance.
  • PHI expertise: Our decades of experience with PHI ensures a smooth transfer without risk exposure. 
  • Simple scalability: Enjoy a repeatable process that enables scalability without constraints and roadblocks. 
  • Always on time: Experience no lags in transferring data so that you can meet your timelines and deadlines. 
  • 24/7/365 support: Access our support team whenever you need them with worry-free assurances. 

Explore our data sharing solutions today to learn how we can make your migrations pain-free!