Q: How does the Supplemental Medical Review Contractor determine which reviews to perform? Does SMRC work for CMS or our Medicare Administrative Contractor?
Q: If a patient accidentally puts the paperwork in the trash or on the table, and the information on the paperwork is visible to other patients or family members, is it a HIPAA violation?
Our hospital is located in a rural location where it is difficult to find specialty physicians to provide services to its hospital outpatients. We are trying to determine which of our facilities that furnish services on or near the hospital campus would be excluded from provider-based requirements.
Q: Our facility does not often use open-ended queries to physicians. Could you give an example of an open-ended query and any disadvantages they may have?
Q: We see many assertions that encryption at the right level meets the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/HIPAA safe harbor provision with no explanation of what is necessary to prove the breached electronic protected health information (PHI) was actually encrypted at the moment of breach. How can a covered entity prove the PHI was actually encrypted at the time of the breach?
Q: Ever since we moved to an electronic health record (EHR), our HIM department has noticed some physicians copying and pasting information from previous records. How do we know when this is allowed or when we can query the provider to clarify?
