AHIOS Announces New President and Executive Committee

The Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services (AHIOS), an organization of executives from the leading HIM outsourcing service companies who promote excellence in managing risk and compliance issues around disclosure of protected health information (PHI), announced the appointment of its new president Stephen Hynes and new executive committee.

As president of AHIOS, Hynes will lead the organization’s efforts to strengthen, enhance, and raise awareness of the value of the HIM outsourcing industry as it evolves to a more technology-based process, while establishing standards of excellence for the entire industry to ensure quality assurance and compliance with ever-changing, complex regulations. An industry veteran, Hynes is one of the founders and currently the CEO of MRO, a disclosure management company that provides technology-driven solutions for ensuring the secure, compliant, and efficient exchange of PHI including release of information (ROI), payer audit compliance and tracking, accounting of disclosures, and services and applications that support meaningful use and health information exchange. He has also served as president-elect of AHIOS and continues to be a member of the association’s executive committee.

Serving with Hynes on the executive committee is AHIOS executive director, Bonnie Coffey, who is a past president of AHIOS and founder and former CEO of CM Information Specialists in Minneapolis. Additionally, Jim Bailey has been named president-elect of AHIOS; Donna Paine has been elected secretary of AHIOS; and David Jackson, past president of AHIOS, round out the executive committee. Bailey is currently the president of BACTES, a division of Sharecare, and a leader in fulfilling medical record requests for thousands of health care providers across the United State. Paine is currently the president of Trackstar Release of Information Services, a company that provides a full suite of ROI services for hospitals, clinics, subacute care facilities, and physician offices. Jackson is currently president of Midwest Medical Record Association, a company that provides comprehensive information management services for HIM departments in ROI, recovery audit contractor tracking, and document imaging.

“In these challenging and transformational times for the health care system, I am honored to have been named president of AHIOS by my colleagues who lead the industry’s premier HIM outsourcing services organizations,” says Hynes. “I have been a member of this influential association for many years and have been committed to its advocacy and education initiatives for the ROI industry that address quality assurance and complex compliance issues that are vital to the essential work of our member organizations and the entire health care industry. As president, my goal is to continue the AHIOS mission of increasing awareness of the value of partnering with AHIOS member organizations and to ensure that the health care industry has access to highly skilled, certified professionals when considering initiatives surrounding the secure and compliant exchange of PHI.”

One of the first initiatives of the new AHIOS executive team is the release of an educational video entitled “Understanding the Release of Information Process: The Misconceptions Related to Processing and Delivering of Electronic Health Records.” The video is designed to educate patients, lawmakers, and health care leaders on the regulatory complexities in the ROI process and the effort required to release PHI.

Source: Association of Health Information Outsourcing Services