HIPAA Q&A: Business associate contracts
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, May 3, 2010
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Q. How often must we renew business associate (BA) agreements? Our BA agreements include a section entitled “Continuing Obligation.” It states that the BA’s obligation to protect PHI and health information received from or on behalf of our organization shall be continuous and shall survive any termination, cancellation, expiration, or other conclusion of our agreement.
A. Generally, BA agreements are renewed upon the signing of a new contract with a BA. Renewing all agreements periodically is unnecessary unless new regulations require inclusion of additional provisions in the agreements.
(Editor’s note: HITECH does require amendments to BA contracts to reflect changes in HITECH, but the Office for Civil Rights has yet to release a proposed rule regarding BA contracts).
Mary Brandt, president of Bellaire, TX-based Brandt & Associates, LLC, answered this question. This is not legal advice. Consult your attorney regarding legal matters. Brandt is president of Brandt & Associates, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm in Bellaire, TX. She is a nationally recognized expert on patient privacy, information security, and regulatory compliance, and her publications provided some of the basis for HIPAA’s privacy regulations. She is also the former director of policy and research for the American Health Information Management Association.
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