HIPAA Privacy and HITECH

The HIPAA privacy rules are perhaps the most significant regulatory changes affecting healthcare practices in the last twenty years. With already heavy demands upon staff, few practices have become fully compliant with the HIPAA regulations.The new HITECH regulations are compounding this problem.

Perhaps you have found yourself asking such questions as:

• Can I send medical records of a patient to another doctor's office without the patient's consent?
• Can I fax patient information?
• Do I have to honor a patient's request to amend his/her medical record?
• What information do I have to keep to honor a patient's right to an accounting of uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI)?
• Who is able answer these questions in your own practice?

You may not have fully implemented a HIPAA/HITECH Compliance Program, but it's important that you do so, and soon. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released an interim rule outlining the steps CMS will take to enforce compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule requirements and fines that it will levy. This new rule will impact every facet of the healthcare industry. The bottom line, you do need to pay attention to HIPAA, and you do need a resource to help.