INDUSTRY INSIGHTS
Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions
and recent articles we have written.
Supreme Court Chevron Decision
Dorothy, You’re Not In Kansas Anymore Mark June 28, 2024 on your calendar as potentially one of the most significant dates in the compliance and regulatory world’s history. On that date, the Supreme Court concluded Loper v. Raimondo, overturning a 40 year old ruling...
Answers to 11 Common Questions About Employee Vacation Time Rights
Summer months and holidays are common times when your employees would like to spend time with their family and friends. It is also a time when your patients, especially students of all ages, often want to take care of their eyecare needs. These two desires/needs can...
UPDATE ON EMPLOYEE CLASSIFICATION
Washington and many states are increasing oversight and investigation into employee misclassification – predominantly employees being paid inappropriately on a salaried basis. For years, PCS has encouraged our colleagues to weigh the significant consequences of...
FTC Effectively Bans All Non-Competes
As PCS has been stating for over a year, the implementation of an FTC rule banning most all non-competes was imminent – and now has happened. Although sweeping in its scope and seemingly non-existent exemptions, the 570-page rule is still very complex. While some...
How Social media works to help or hurt your practice
Whether you are participating in social media related to your practice or not, your patients are. The average person spends about 145 minutes on social media every day. 90% of users follow at least one brand on social media. Facebook, with 2.9 billion monthly active...
Update on Federal Pregnant Works Fairness Act
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was signed into law by President Biden in December 2022, and the law went into effect in June 2023. The law requires all employers to provide reasonable accommodation to all employees for pregnancy and related complications as long...
United Healthcare Breach Update
By now, everyone is aware of the UHC breach and its massive impact on most healthcare providers. The resolution of this problem has proceeded at a snail’s pace. Some, but not most, systems are back in operation, but specific clearinghouses, payers, and EMRs remain...
Removing Reviews from Google
Sometimes a review may be inappropriate, or you may disagree with it. You can ask Google to remove or delete an inappropriate review from your Business Profile and in certain circumstances, Google can remove reviews that violate Google's policies. You can read...
The United Healthcare Breach
WHAT HAPPENED? Most are aware of the massive cyberattack on United Healthcare (UHC) revealed over the past few weeks. The breach has been traced to an employee download that allowed cybercriminals access to huge amounts of the database. The impact of this breach is...
FTC Eyeglass Rule and Contact Lens Rule
Recently, PCS has become aware of an apparent increase in violations of the prescription release requirements under Federal law. An update on the requirements of these laws appears in order. Eyeglasses The FTC’s Ophthalmic Practice Rule related to eyeglass...
The Corporate Transparency Act
The Corporate Transparency Act went into effect in January of 2024, and may require your practice to report information about ownership to the government. *** Update March 22, 2024 *** On March 1, 2024, the U.S. District Court, N.D. of Alabama declared the act...
Importance of Auditing Your Medical Records
Routine medical record audits serve three important functions: They provide a check-up on documentation and billing patterns. Problematic compliance can be identified and corrected through training before a real audit happens and a large refund is demanded. They can...
Business Associate Agreements
Who Is a Business Associate? The concept of who is a business associate is a common area of confusion but doesn’t have to be. To define who is a business associate, simply ask three questions. Does the individual or group have access to patient information? Do they...
MIPS 2024 Update
Not many providers understand MIPS and few ODs chose to participate in MIPS, but we do get questions about it frequently. If you are wondering how it applies to you, this article should help. Does MIPS apply to you? MIPS does apply to optometrist who bill Medicare and...
ADA compliance checklist for websites
ADA compliance checklist for websites Step 1: Read the law documentation Step 2: All media files and maps should have an “alt” tag Step 3: All your online forms should have descriptive html tags Step 4: All hyperlinks should have a descriptive anchor text Step 5: All...
ADA Website Compliance
Many of our clients are asking about the new ADA website regulations, and while there are no new "regulations", there were some recently updated "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines". In this article we will explain what that means for you as an optometrist and...
PCI Compliance
We get questions fairly regularly about PCI compliance and what it means for the practice. In this article we will give a brief overview of what it means for the practice. What is PCI Compliance? PCI compliance, or payment card industry compliance, refers to a set of...
How to deal with Online Reviews
There are 3 options when it comes to responding to online reviews: Don’t respond at all - The safest, but not always practical Respond in a completely generic way, - The office must be VERY careful not to confirm any patient details or even that the poster is a...
Employee Terminations – Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
As a compliance company specializing in human resource management, employee termination problems are a weekly issue – at a minimum. Like many issues in HR, the rules can be very complex and often don’t even follow common sense. To start, let’s clarify that the...
How and when do you “fire” a patient
Unfortunately, if you see patients, you will encounter difficult and or rude ones. Good customer service skills will usually help you deal with almost all of them but occasionally a situation will arise where you need to "fire" a patient. While Dr. DeLoach and I have...
