Health Information Management

Study: Percentage of noncompliant facilities grows

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, April 24, 2006

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A drop in the number of facilities that report they are fully or mostly HIPAA-compliant should warn the industry that compliance cannot be taken for granted, according to a new study published by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).

Although the number of hospitals and health systems reporting full HIPAA compliance was 39%-comparable to last year's 40%-the percentage reporting less than 85% compliance rose from 9% to 15%. The April survey of 1,117 privacy and security officials also revealed that privacy officers in particular feel that lack of resources hinders their ongoing compliance efforts. Fifty-five percent of respondents reported this as their most significant obstacle to compliance.

Other survey findings include the following:

  • 64% of respondents said they had not received any patient requests for an accounting of disclosures, leading 29% of respondents to say that the government should modify this section of the privacy rule
  • 25% of respondents indicated they were "completely compliant" with the security rule, up from 17% in 2005
  • 22% reported that state preemption has caused difficulties for them

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