New HIPAA Rules - Meeting Requirements for New Patient Rights and New Restrictions on Disclosures - Webinar By MentorHealth March 21, 2013

Overview: New changes modifying the HIPAA Privacy and Security Regulations are going into place to meet the privacy and security mandates within the HITECH Act in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The changes include establishing new rights for individuals as well as changes to the limitations on uses and disclosures. New requirements for patient access to records and requirements to notify individuals in the event of a breach are only two of the many areas affected in the new law, including new requirements for restriction and accounting of disclosures and increased enforcement activity.

Covered entities that use electronic health records (EHRs) will need to meet new access and disclosure rules and all kinds of business associates and their subcontractors will need to establish compliance programs. And if you are required to have a HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices, you will need to update that to show all the new rights that patients will have, such as electronic copies, new rights to restrict disclosures, and much more.
Business associates are now directly covered by the HIPAA privacy and security regulations and are liable for fines and penalties if they do not comply. If a business associate supplies services that interact with the new changes to the rules, the BA will need to be aware of the new requirements. We will explain what a Business Associate needs to do differently under the new regulations.
Electronic records have new demands placed on them, in both providing access and in accounting for all disclosures of health information - the electronic age in health care brings new obligations to serve individuals as well as manage health information for healthcare professionals. We will discuss how disclosures must be tracked in an EHR and review the various ways patient records can be supplied electronically.
The new regulations will be reviewed and their effects on usual practices will be discussed, as will what policies need to be changed and how. We will show what policies and evidence you need to produce if you are audited by the HHS Office of Civil Rights. Now that there is a legislative mandate to audit compliance, and a random audit plan well under way, you need to be prepared to respond to audit requests.
Not only are the compliance rules changed, but the enforcement rules have changed, with a new four-tier violation schedule with increased minimum and maximum fines, and mandatory fines for willful neglect of compliance that start at $10,000 even if the problem is corrected within 30 days of discovery. Violations that are not promptly corrected carry mandatory minimum fines starting at $50,000 and can reach $1.5 million for any particular violation. And any reports of willful neglect are required to be investigated under the law. Even violations for a reasonable cause or with reasonable diligence taken are subject to penalty.
Whereas the former practice of USDHHS has been to audit compliance only in instances where a violation was reported, the law now requires USDHHS to conduct a regular HIPAA compliance audit program. The new audit program is already under way. With the far-reaching changes in the rules and the new enforcement and penalty levels, it’s never been more important to review your HIPAA compliance and meet the new requirements.
This Webinar will help health information professionals understand what they have to do, and when, and what to keep in mind as they move forward, in order to be prepared for compliance with the new regulations. It will provide a comprehensive look at the changes in the law and prepare attendees for the process of incorporating the changes into how they do business in their facilities.

Why should you attend:
The HIPAA privacy and security regulations are changing in ways that affect every health care-related entity, from providers to insurers to business associates, and more. The HIPAA Privacy and Security Regulations have been modified in regulations previously issued as interim final rules (IFRs) and notices of proposed rule making (NPRMs) by the US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), and many of these new regulations have been finalized in the new final HIPAA update. There are new rights established for individuals that entities must be prepared to honour, as well as new limits on disclosures that entities must be aware of to be fully compliant.
All kinds of covered entities, and now, business associates of covered entities and their subcontractors as well, need to review their HIPAA compliance, policies, and procedures to see if they are prepared to meet the changes in the rules. Any entity whose activities involve the new rights and limitations will need to update their policies and procedures.
Changes in marketing regulations are creating new obligations and limiting behaviours that may already be in place.
New regulations around the release and accounting of electronic records are creating new burdens that your EHR and your medical records department must deal with. You will even have to update your HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices to show how you support the new patient rights under HIPAA as amended by HITECH.
The enforcement rules have changed, with a new four-tier violation schedule with increased minimum and maximum fines, and mandatory fines for willful neglect of compliance that start at $10,000 even if the problem is corrected within 30 days of discovery. Violations that are not promptly corrected carry mandatory minimum fines starting at $50,000 and can reach $1.5 million for any particular violation. And any reports of willful neglect are required to be investigated under the law. Even violations for a reasonable cause or with reasonable diligence taken are subject to penalty.

Areas Covered in the Session:
The new regulations will be reviewed and their effects on usual practices will be discussed, as well as what policies need to be changed and how.
Learn how the new regulations change the way individuals have access to their records, and how much they can find out about who has accessed their records.
Find out about how individuals can now request certain restrictions on disclosures that you must honour.
Learn about the new requirements for disclosers of health information to apply "minimum necessary" standards.
Find out about how new limitations on marketing and fund-raising may change how entities can reach out to individuals.
The features that must be available in EHR systems and the questions to ask system vendors will be described. The processes for responding to requests for copies of electronic records and accountings of disclosures will be related to the regulations that require them.
The role of business associates will be discussed, and the extension of some new requirements out to them by way of their use of Designated Record Set data will be explored, including potential necessary changes to business associate agreements.
Learn all about how new audit and penalty requirements increase the need to make sure you are in compliance before HHS OCR knocks on the door.
We will show what policies and evidence you need to produce if you are audited by the HHS Office of Civil Rights. Now that there is a legislative mandate to audit compliance, and a random audit plan under way, you need to be prepared to respond to audit requests.

Who Will Benefit:
Compliance Director
CEO
CFO
Privacy Officer
Security Officer
Information Systems Manager
HIPAA Officer
Chief Information Officer
Health Information Manager
Healthcare Counsel/lawyer
Office Manager
Jim Sheldon-Dean is the founder and director of compliance services at Lewis Creek Systems, LLC, a Vermont-based consulting firm founded in 1982, providing information privacy and security regulatory compliance services to a variety of health care providers, businesses, universities, small and large hospitals, urban and rural mental health and social service agencies, health insurance plans, and health care business associates.

Sheldon-Dean serves on the HIMSS Information Systems Security Workgroup, has co-chaired the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange Privacy and Security Workgroup, serves on the WEDI Breach Notification sub-workgroup, and is a recipient of the WEDI 2011 Award of Merit. He is a frequent speaker regarding HIPAA and information privacy and security compliance issues at seminars and conferences, including speaking engagements at numerous regional and national healthcare association conferences and conventions.

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