Editor's Note Healthcare providers, payers, and analytics teams face sweeping ICD-10 changes this fall, with the 2026 code updates taking effect October 1, 2025, Wolters Kluwer July 14 reports. The release includes 614 new codes, 12 invalidations, 642 billability changes, 88 terminology revisions, and the creation of an entirely new…
Editor's Note The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has conducted the largest healthcare fraud takedown in US history, charging 324 individuals, including 96 licensed medical professionals, in schemes totaling more than $14.6 billion, HealthCare Business News July 8 reports. The nationwide crackdown involved 50 federal districts and 12 state attorneys…
Editor's Note Since February 2024, changes to the Registrant Validation Toolset from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have introduced new hurdles for healthcare organizations, MedTrainer October 2024 reports. The updates, which aim to prevent fraud by adding multi-factor authentication, are causing compliance challenges during primary source verification (PSV). Credentialers are…
Editor's Note The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has withdrawn its appeal against a federal court decision that blocked a rule restricting hospitals from using tracking technology on their websites, HealthLeaders August 30 reports. This rule, proposed in December 2022 by the HHS Office for Civil Rights,…
Editor's Note Combining dexterity and cost-effectiveness, handheld robotic devices offer potential to bridge the gap between traditional laparoscopy and more expensive robotic platforms, researchers concluded August 8 in the journal Surgery. The mini-review of clinical trials covered clinical applications of three handheld robotic devices: the HandX powered laparoscopic instrument from…
Editor's Note Hospitals and health systems have largely returned to normal operations in the wake of a global IT outage caused by a faulty update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, according to a July 29 article in Becker’s Health IT. The outage, which began July 18, resulted in many health systems'…
Editor's Note The FBI has infiltrated the ransomware group BlackCat—the group responsible for a February cyberattack on the Lehigh Valley Health Network—and issued a decryption tool enabling victims around the world to restore their systems, according to a December 19 Justice Department press release. Emerging during the past 18…
An estimated 126.6 million Americans are dealing with the impact of a musculoskeletal (MSK) condition, according to a US Bone and Joint Initiative report. That means, one in two adults in the US have gone or will be going through a wide range of hip, knee, shoulder, and/or spine procedures.…
Editor’s Note A new automated delivery system for anesthesia that has been effectively tested in monkeys could eventually be used by doctors to identify and deliver the right dose of drugs in people. The findings appeared October 31 in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United…
Editor's Note The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recognized the latest guidance on medical device cybersecurity from the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), an AAMI November 14 press release reports. This latest cybersecurity recognition is encouraging its use across the medical device manufacturing industry to…
