Health Information Management

CMS to continue voluntary compliance policy

HIPAA Weekly Advisor, June 12, 2006

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CMS will "for the foreseeable future" continue to seek voluntary compliance with the security and NPI rules (NPI rule compliance date: May 23, 2007), says Stanley Nachimson, senior technical advisor for CMS' Office of E-Health Standards and Services, the CMS office responsible for enforcing all of HIPAA's administrative simplification provisions except privacy.

Although the final enforcement rule formalized the process for assessing civil money penalties (CMP), it has not changed CMS' enforcement outlook, Nachimson says. CMS has not yet recommended a CMP in response to a security complaint, though it remains in the agency's enforcement arsenal.

With the compliance deadline for the NPI less than a year away, CMS is working closely with the industry on enumeration and testing. However, it is too early to tell whether these efforts will be successful, Nachimson says. The latest reports indicate that HHS is assigning 5,000-6,000 NPIs per day.

CMS will "absolutely" hold the same voluntary compliance policy as it does for the other HIPAA standards, Nachimson adds.



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