OCR: HITECH rules to be released together in 2011
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, December 20, 2010
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIPAA Weekly Advisor!
A senior official with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said December 14 the HIPAA privacy and security rule enforcer plans to release final rules regarding HITECH and HIPAA next year.
Adam H. Greene, senior health information technology and privacy specialist at OCR, told the audience at the seminar, “2010 ONC Update,” that he doesn’t know specifically when in 2011 the rules would be released but added they would be published “contemporaneously.” OCR’s intention is to avoid staggering compliance dates.
The rules to which Greene alluded are:
- Breach notification
- Enforcement
- HIPAA HITECH (modifications to privacy and security rules)
Greene also said a proposed rule on accounting of disclosures of EHRs will be released in 2011. HITECH calls for OCR to expand the HIPAA accounting disclosures provision to add treatment, payment, and healthcare operations disclosures when they’re through an EHR. HITECH calls on the HHS secretary to balance the interest of individuals who want to learn the information versus the burden on covered entities.
HITECH also calls for “periodic audits” of HIPAA compliance, but federal regulators have yet to announce any details of the plan other than who is helping them craft one.
Asked about the status of the audit program, Greene said, “That’s the $1.5 million question … when will this audit program begin and what are the chances that I’m going to be audited? And I wish I did have more information for you on that.
A lot of it can depend on what potential audit program the OCR initiates, Greene said. If it’s more of a classic audit program through OCR directly or through contractors reviewing a sample of data, that time frame may be very different than trying to create a program that touched the entire business community and associate certification process.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIPAA Weekly Advisor!
Related Products
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- Topic: CMS, OESS post new security compliance review information, checklist
- Capturing all necessary codes for IUD insertion and removal can be challenging
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- QA:Coding multiple initial infusions
- Identify potential Medicaid RAC target areas
- OB services: Coding inside and outside of the package
- E-mailed
-
- Q/A: Volume requirement for reporting hydration services
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- HIPAA Q&A: Level of encryption needed for email
- Q&A: Follow CMS' coding guidelines when using modifier -25
- CMS has reformulated payments for some bilateral procedures
- Catch up on what's new with injections and infusions
- New conflicts of interest create new challenges
- Q/A. One injection code or two?
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- ED-to-inpatient transfers are flawed with safety gaps
- Searched