Health Information Management

Two HITECH compliance tips

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, December 28, 2009

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The deadline for compliance with some of the major HITECH requirements comes in February. Consider these tips as you prepare for the approaching deadline:

Coordinate security breach notification in your contract with a business associate (BA).
"It's much better to negotiate that before you've got a problem rather than in the heat of the moment," says John R. Christiansen, founder of Christiansen IT Law in Seattle. "It's very important to cover that in advance to the greatest extent you can."

Spell out your BA’s security obligations. Specify safeguards and require that they coordinate their activities with your organization. "If you're accessing the same information using the same service together, that can get a bit complicated," Christiansen says. "If you've got different security standards for each, that can get unnecessarily complicated. It's an opportunity to have a dialogue you ought to be having."



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