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Although the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act does not create a private right to sue health care workers who leak information, state laws do, says Stephen A. Frew, JD, a web site publisher and risk management consultant for Physicians Insurance Co. of Wisconsin in Madison. More importantly, Frew adds in a recent report, HIPAA probably will come to be the standard of care for these state actions.
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CMS makes changes to MSP regulations; Hospital credit downgrades said to be on the increase; Critical focus areas for random JCAHO surveys; Bedside patient education offered by Most Wired
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As the Oct. 16 deadline for covered entities to comply with HIPAAs electronic code set and transaction provisions approaches, organizations should be intensifying their efforts toward achieving compliance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
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A survey by Dallas-based ZixCorp, a global provider of e-messaging management and protection services, indicates that many leading health care organizations are transmitting e-mail messages containing federally protected health information over public networks without using appropriate safeguards.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says HIPAA privacy regulations dont negate requirements under the Social Security Act that the results of the most recent nursing home survey must be made available to the public.
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A San Francisco insurer is offering health care providers what it says may be a first in underwriting a professional liability insurance policy specifically geared toward electronic-based and web-enabled transactions for health care operations. The policy might be especially useful in insuring against HIPAA violations, the company says.
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A web page for registration training and support for Aurora Health Cares metro region is providing a wealth of information for access personnel and drawing praise not just from the Milwaukee-based facilities it targets, but throughout the Aurora network.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will use a complaint-driven process to enforce the transactions and code sets provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act after the Oct. 16 implementation deadline, and will focus on using voluntary compliance.
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Physician practices considering going back to paper claims as a way of coping with the Oct. 16 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services deadline for transactions and code sets should resist the temptation, according to John Thomas, CEO of Dallas-based MedSynergies.
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The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the National Committee for Quality Assurance have started a new Privacy Certification Program for Business Associates to assess whether organizations designated as business associates under HIPAA are meeting essential requirements for safeguarding personally identifiable health information.
