The healthcare industry is changing rapidly, and if you've been paying attention to the news you've probably noticed the recent wave of hospital mergers.
It's a brave new world out there for business associates (BA). BAs needed to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule and the use and disclosure provisions of the Privacy Rule in February 2010 as a result of the HITECH Act. However, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) held off on any enforcement activities-that is, until recently.
Also known as the "mega rules," the omnibus final rules are clarifications and finalizations of the HIPAA rules of 2003, the HITECH rules of 2008, and the incorporation of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) rules into the Privacy and Security rules. These are not sweeping changes, as many describe, but clarifications. In most cases, what are now final rules are best practices that organizations should already be following.
To comply with the HIPAA omnibus final rule, healthcare organizations need to revise their risk assessment process to determine whether they must notify affected individuals of a breach.
If there's one conclusion you can reach looking back at data breaches over the last decade, it's that organizations face more threats than ever, according to HIPAA professionals.
