HIPAA

Healthcare organizations could see the long-awaited final rules for HIPAA/HITECH before the end of June.

With 20 initial "trial" audits completed, OCR ­expects to move forward with another 95 audits to ­measure HIPAA compliance before year's end, said ­Susan ­McAndrew, JD, OCR's deputy director for health ­information privacy. This represents a reduction in the number of audits (150) that were originally planned for 2012.

Sure, you understand the value of investing in improvements that will better protect your organization's PHI. But do the senior leaders who actually hold the purse strings get it?

Q. Please explain in an understandable way for nontechnical individuals what level of encryption is needed for e-mail to be considered secure as defined in the interim final breach notification rule.

All covered entities (CE) face the question, “Will the data be there when I need it?”

How well you train your workforce members will determine whether you score points or encounter problems during a HIPAA compliance audit.

Mac McMillan, CISSM, has an insider’s look at what it’s like to undergo a HIPAA compliance audit.

Navigating the new world of social media is challenging for many professions, but perhaps none more so than the medical profession, where physicians and other healthcare professionals must balance a tell-all online culture with the HIPAA Privacy Rule's mandate to protect patient privacy.

If your healthcare organization hasn’t yet completed a security risk analysis, you just got another reason to conduct one.