Well now that I have gotten through my 200+ emails since getting back to work all I can say it is really refreshing to be in a place where everybody is in the same boat as you. Whether you do billing, privacy, audit, or anything else we all feel the same pressures and stress. Having Dan Levinson the US Inspector General for HHS as the keynote speaker there, really reinforced the importance of compliance and another topic, Data Quality. I don't think he could be any clearer that data quality is going to be extremely important. The push for EMR's is the first step, the next step are HIE's. All medical data is going to be tracked and checked. There are going to be more than a few compliance officers reading books on Data warehouses in the next couple of years.
The other take away I have is reach out to colleagues and ask for help. It's a huge networking event at the conference and to be honest most compliance departments are pretty small staffing wise to have a huge knowledge base. . Reach out and ask questions!!! The only bad question is the one that is never asked.
