HIPAA Disclosure Documentation

Prior to the establishment of HIPAA Policies and Procedures, no federal regulations existed that required any type of tracking system to account for the release of information.  Now, however, based on the HIPAAprivacy rule, as explained in the Omnibus final rule, covered entities must track protected health information that has been disclosed.  This was instituted to allow an individual to receive an accounting of disclosures for the...

Read More

The HIPAA Omnibus Rule

HIPAA rules and regulations were significantly updated and more clearly defined through the passage of the HIPAA Omnibus Rule, also known as the HIPAA final rule.  The final rule bolsters the privacy and security rules for protected health information established under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). As of January 27, 2013, this overhauled version of the HIPAA compliance laws were put into...

Read More

HIPAA, Security, and the Mobile Device

With the inclusion of Biometrics to the IPHONE 5, as seen in this article, http://secureidnews.com/news-item/analysis-biometrics-and-the-iphone/, there are many pros and cons that will affect how to be hipaa compliant. Awesome that you can use your own identification to open you mobile device but it also comes with organizations and individuals who think this is not such a great thing. For many years putting sensitive information on...

Read More

What to Expect When the HIPAA Auditors Arrive?

You think it’s an average, ordinary day and sit back as you go through the mail.  You pull an envelope out of the pile, read the return address and suddenly sit up straight.  You already know the contents of what is inside and your heart rate increases as you carefully slit open the top.  Despite telling yourself you could be wrong as you remove the letter, you discover  you are not.  It is the dreaded OCR audit notification...

Read More

CMS Meaningful Use Audits are coming are you ready?

CMS has started audits on organizations that have attested to HITECH Meaningful Use and have received funds.  They plan is to audit 5 % percent of the people who have attested for HITECH Meaningful Use core measure 15 and received funding.  Although the initial audit is a “Desk Audit” done electronically where a third party company will be requesting electronic documentation on your attestation, your lack of documentation or performance...

Read More