Who would have thought that buying gas with a credit card or wearing a pacemaker could leave a person's information exposed? Yet highly sophisticated credit card skimming devices at gas stations are stealing from consumers, and healthcare organizations are concerned about the potential for malicious tampering or the theft of PHI from wireless medical devices such as pacemakers. Hidden vulnerabilities lie in everyday activities like these, and some of those vulnerabilities can expose PHI and put healthcare organizations at risk.
Q. We are a claims repricer and maintain a secure claims department. When outside vendors, such as building maintenance people, enter the secure area, are they required to sign a logbook indicating what time and date they entered and exited the claims department?
If many acute care hospitals struggle to protect patient privacy, long-term care organizations face their own challenges in ensuring the privacy of residents who live in their nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
One task that almost every healthcare organization is going to have to tackle to comply with the HIPAA omnibus final rule is amending its Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP).
