December 2013

Silicon Valley has rediscovered cybersecurity. The last time it was this focused on the field was in the 1990s. Two giants emerged from that generation: McAfee and Symantec. These may well be the two security companies that remain the most recognizable household names, thanks to their traditional firewall and anti-virus products. Now they find their turf being encroached from two sides. From one side comes tech giants like Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems, which see new revenue opportunity in cybersecurity. From the other side comes a rush of start-ups backed by large chunks of venture capital.

As of October 2013, 85 percent of eligible hospitals and more than six in 10 eligible professionals had received a Medicare or Medicaid EHR incentive payment. Moreover, nine in 10 eligible hospitals and eight in 10 eligible professionals had taken the initial step of registering for the Medicare or Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs as of October 2013.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a new timeline for the implementation of meaningful use for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) proposed a more regular approach to update ONC’s certification regulations. Under the revised timeline, Stage 2 will be extended through 2016 and Stage 3 will begin in 2017 for those providers that have completed at least two years in Stage 2. The goal of this change is two-fold: first, to allow CMS and ONC to focus efforts on the successful implementation of the enhanced patient engagement, interoperability and health information exchange requirements in Stage 2; and second, to utilize data from Stage 2 participation to inform policy decisions for Stage 3. This new proposed timeline tracks ongoing conversations we at CMS and ONC have had with providers, consumers, health care associations, EHR developers, and other stakeholders in the health care industry. This timeline allows for enhanced program analysis of Stage 2 data to inform the improvements in care delivery outcomes in Stage 3.

AT&T, under fire for ongoing revelations that it shares and sells customers' communications records to the National Security Agency and other US intelligence offices, says it isn't required to disclose to shareholders what it does with customers' data.

In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, AT&T said it protects customer information and complies with government requests for records "only to the extent required by law." AT&T's letter was a response to a shareholder revolt sparked on Nov 20 by the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the ACLU of Northern California and others. The groups are demanding that AT&T and Verizon be more transparent about their dealings with the NSA. In the letter, AT&T said information about assisting foreign intelligence surveillance activities is almost certainly classified. The company said it should not have to address the issue at its annual shareholders meeting in the spring of 2014. Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California said AT&T has overstepped its bounds. "It's outrageous that AT&T is trying to block the shareholder proposal," she said. "Customers have a right to know how often their private information is ending up in the government's hands."

The Administration has finally announced the error rate for “834 transmissions”, the data sent to insurance companies after applicants fill out their information on the Healthcare.gov marketplace. It's not good: one in ten forms contain errors, a spokesperson said. 834 is short for "834 Electronic Data Interchange Transmissions" or "834 EDI Transactions," the files that get passed to insurance companies so new enrollees can be added to their systems. This is a critical function of the federal marketplace: if it doesn't correctly communicate with insurers, people won't get the coverage they think they've signed up for.