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Include your facility's notice of privacy practices with general admission forms

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, May 3, 2002

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When patients are first admitted to a hospital, it's the perfect time to present them with your facility's notice of privacy practices and allow them to ask questions. They're already signing a bunch of other forms, including a general treatment consent form and other releases.

The proposed privacy rule changes would require facilities to "make a good faith effort to obtain an individual's written acknowledgment of receipt of the notice of privacy practices," instead of obtaining written consent for the facility to share information for treatment, payment, and routine health care operations.

Focus on your notice of privacy practices now because it's likely the proposed elimination of the consent requirement will stick, says Martha Baxter, JD, a partner in the health care department at Bricker and Eckler, LLP, in Columbus, OH.

"[Sen. Edward M.] Kennedy (D-MA) is pushing to get consent back, but I don't think that's going to happen," she says. "The health care industry as a whole has established with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that what they were trying to do with consent would impede efficient health care and not do that much more for privacy."

Go to http://www.himinfo.com/news/feature.cfm?content_id=22024 for tips for meeting this new requirement.

Go to http://www.himinfo.com/news/asktheexpert/ to read about the privacy rule's notice of privacy practices requirements.

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