Phi Ten
Follow These Tips To Protect Phi
You may be sure that you have dotted all of your I's and crossed all of your 's, but if you miss out on even a small pie of the privacy puzzle, you can compromise your entire system. Here are three reminders to ensure that you have started the year with your privacy program on the right note:
1. Do not let paper get lost in the Shuffle. You may think of patient privacy entirely in terms of protecting electronic patient data, but paper files are just as likely to be compromised. According to Gregory Michaels, manager of security and compliance solutions at BluePrint Healthcare IT in Cranbury, N.J, "With the onset of the HITECH changes, breaches occurring with paper records will be treated the same way as electronic data."
Michaels advises, "Physicians may take paper records home as opposed to USB keys, or they may take paper records in their car with them to the office or hospital, and obviously those things have the same value in terms of the information contained in them."
Even in facilities where paper records are tucked securely, there is still a chance that the information on them might be exposed.
He says, "In some hospitals, the main medical record area is well secured, however other departments may have access to records, take them from the room, and stock them up temporarily while using them, and may not be keeping them safe."
"Even if we can move to 50 or 60 percent of medical practices becoming fully electronic in the next few years, we are still looking at a long time before paper is eliminated; so see to it that any PHI stored on paper in your office is secure."
Practices were always advised to handle PHI securely, whether it was on paper or stored electronically even before the HITECH Act came into being.
"It has been the case for a long time, and it is still the case, that Health Care providers should not throw PHI into the thrash," noted Michelle Wilcox DeBarge, Esq., with Wiggin and Dana LLP in Hartford, Conn.
"Proper disposal practices should be in place (for example, shredding)," she adds. She also advises, "And now under HITECH, the breach notification requirements just don't apply to breaches of electronic information – oral or paper disclosures fall under the Act as well."
2. Know the fact that patients are aware. You may have asked patients to sign a HIPAA privacy form. But are they content? Not necessarily. Says DeBarge, "The HITECH Act imposed an affirmative obligation on the government agency overseeing the HIPAA compliance program to investigate compliance breaches." "Earlier it was driven by complaints only, but they now have an obligation to affirmatively audit and monitor."
The government has been employing people to ensure compliance and will be providing education programs to the public and "we are anticipating a lot of awareness, and for patients to be asking more questions about the use of their PHI going forward," notes Peter Courtway, chief information officer for Danbury Health Systems in Connecticut.
DeBarge adds, "There's also a provision under HITECH that'll allow individuals who have been affected by a breach to have a share in the proceeds of the penalties." "We do not have the details as yet, but this is another factor that patients will have incentive to pay attention."
3. Do not forget the front. You may be compromising patient data in other ways apart from electronic and paper breaches. Perform a walkthrough in your organization or practice to ensure that no other leaks are there.
For example: A compliance officer walked through her practice and was happy to see that computer monitors at the front desk had been turned so that patients in the waiting area couldn't see the screens. But, upon going to the elevators, she realized that the monitors were viewable through the glass entryway, and that anyone in the building's lobby could be witness to the data.
About the Author
Torrey Kim, MA, CPC covers Medicare coding, billing, compliance and HIT issues in-depth every week as the editor-in-chief of the popular weekly publication Part B Insider, available on Supercoder.com.
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