Tip: Take time now to address privacy problem areas
HIPAA Weekly Advisor, September 26, 2003
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Things may not be as hectic now as they were before April 14, but that doesn't mean your job is over. "It's quieter now, but you can't say, 'HIPAA is over. Let's go back to the way things were,'" says Holly Ballam, RHIA, corporate health information management privacy officer and physician liaison at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Your responsibilities may have changed, but there is still work to do, she says. You should have developed policies and procedures well before the privacy rule's compliance date. "But now you're working the bugs out," says Ballam.
Monitor compliance to determine what policies and procedures are working, she says. You may need to make some changes. Beth Israel doesn't have a formal process for auditing HIPAA compliance yet, but Ballam identifies problem areas that need to be addressed by walking the halls and talking to staff, she says. "You don't want to wait until patients file complaints to address issues."
"We got the nitty-gritty done [before April 14] with our steering committee," says Ballam. "But now, we're working on the things that are really difficult. There was no way we could have done them justice if we worked on them while we were working on other things."
Go to http://www.himinfo.com/news/tip/ to read more.
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