All physician and caregiver offices should be migrating to an all-electronic prescription system. If physicians who use EHRs are not e-prescribing, prescriptions should be captured by scanning the paper prescription into the EHR or fully documenting the name, dose, quantity, instructions, and refill amount.  

It is common knowledge in the health care industry that medication errors are a large percentage of preventable harm to patients. As noted below, even the "new" world of electronic prescribing cannot prevent some medication errors. 

On April 8, 2014, support and updates for Windows XP will no longer be available from or provided by Microsoft. If you use Windows XP in your practice, you soon may become noncompliant under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Is your office being overwhelmed by the number of forms that patients are asking you to complete for insurance, disability, and other purposes? Many physicians are charging a fee for this service. While there is no law that prohibits charging patients for completing forms, there are factors to consider in implementing this practice.

Medical offices either considering or currently using a cloud-based service for data storage, retrieval, and patient access have specific fortifications that need to be addressed with a Business Associates Agreement (BAA).