P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute." The sentiment that many people are gullible, and we can expect this to continue, has never been truer than with HIPAA compliance.
Q: I perform monthly HIPAA audits of computer systems at the medical group where I am employed. I recently started auditing physicians and allied health professionals who are credentialed members of our medical staff.
Obtaining valid authorizations for disclosure is a significant area of risk for many organizations. Often, staff members handling disclosures don't understand the requirements?especially regarding when authorizations are needed and who can legally sign them. This chapter takes a comprehensive look at authorizations, including required elements, when they're needed, when they're not needed, who can sign them, and the need to screen outside authorizations.
It's been two years since the American Health Information Management Association joined ACDIS to offer the industry physician query instructions in Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice, published in February 2013.
