Windows 7 is probably in your not-too-distant future, assuming you have not installed it already. While its security measures are a significant step up from XP and Vista, they can still benefit from some help, especially in a work environment made riskier by having most computers out of the office most of the time. A new white paper by security vendor Sophos, "Seven for 7," offers seven best practices for keeping your company and your data more secure when using Windows 7. This summary includes a link to download the full white paper.

Though the deadline has been pushed back a few months, RHHIs will soon deny payment for home health care claims if the physician authorizing Medicare services was not registered in the Medicare Provider Enrollment, Chain and Ownership System ( PECOS) or opted out of Medicare by the date services began. Wouldn't it be handy if your referral intake software included a direct link to the PECOS database? To date, we have heard of two such offerings.

Home Health Gold has announced a new product feature that peers into the future and makes educated guesses about which of today's episodes will attract unwanted RAC auditor attention when those auditors finally turn their attention to home care. This is not merely another produce release announcement but an important warning. See who your own local Recovery Audit Contractor will be and find out how the Brockton VNA is already preparing for that first knock on their door.

Healthcare Market Resources provides local market data to home health care providers nationwide, focusing on claims rather than cost report or receivables. Company president Rich Chesney explained that his complete Medicare claims database enables home health and hospice clients to benchmark financial and operating performance against nationwide peers or as specific as within a single county.

It used to be, if you wanted home health cost report data for a certain year, you had to wait until after the deadline for submitting the reports passed and then another six to twelve months for the data to be published. Now, one of the leading home care consulting firms has joined with one of the leading benchmarking companies to provide the same data real-time and quarterly.