Briefings on HIPAA

Breaches of PHI are increasingly in the news and the value of the data stolen is high. The healthcare industry is a significant target when it comes to cyber crime. Standard credit monitoring or insurance does little when it comes to medical identity theft. MIDAS, offered by ID Experts®, is a tool that can assist payers in early detection of medical identify theft and reduce fraud, going where existing tools have yet to go. It is a solution that's unique in today's market.

Emory University Hospital in Atlanta was thrust into the international spotlight in the summer of 2014 as the world anxiously watched first one, then two, then three humanitarian workers infected with the Ebola virus return from West Africa to the United States for treatment as the months dragged on and public anxiety soared. The fourth patient treated at Emory was a nurse who became infected while caring for an Ebola patient at a Texas hospital.

Email your HIPAA questions to Editor John Castelluccio at jcastelluccio@hcpro.com.

Tips from this month's issue.

Technology is changing rapidly, and so too are the ways in which healthcare organizations create, store, and transmit data. 

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.

Tips from this month's issue.