New Finalized HITECH Amendments to HIPAA - How Policies and Practices Must Be Changed

Why Should You Attend:

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. There are new patient rights and new provider obligations. 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.

This 90-minute session will review the new regulations and discuss their effects on usual practices, as well as, what policies need to be changed and how. The presenter will explain 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. It’s never been more important to review your HIPAA compliance and meet the new requirements.

Areas Covered in the Seminar:

• 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.
• We will discuss what policies and evidence you need to produce if you are audited by the HHS Office of Civil Rights.
• The features that must be available in EHR systems will be described.
• 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 honor.
• Learn about the new requirements for disclosers of health information to apply “minimum necessary” standards.
• Understand the new requirements for Business Associates to comply with HIPAA privacy protections and security safeguards and how BAs are subject to enforcement and penalties directly by HHS.
• Find out about how new limitations on marketing and fund-raising may change how entities can reach out to individuals.
• 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.

Who Will Benefit:

• Information Security Officers.
• Risk Managers.
• Compliance Officers
• Privacy Officers
• Health Information Managers
• Information Technology Managers
• Medical Office Managers
• Chief Financial Officers
• Systems Managers
• Legal Counsel
• Operations Directors
• Medical offices, practice groups, hospitals, academic medical centers, insurers, business associates (shredding, data storage, systems vendors, billing services, etc.)

Instructor Profile:

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 and the annual NIST/OCR HIPAA Security Conference in Washington, D.C.

Sheldon-Dean has more than 30 years of experience in policy analysis and implementation, business process analysis, information systems and software development. His experience includes leading the development of health care related Web sites; award-winning, best-selling commercial utility software; and mission-critical, fault-tolerant communications satellite control systems. In addition, he has eight years of experience doing hands-on medical work as a Vermont certified volunteer emergency medical technician. Sheldon-Dean received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Vermont and his master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Topic Background:

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 expected to be finalized by the end of Summer, 2012 and go into effect just 60 days later.

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. Some subcontractors of business associates may not even be aware that they handle protected health information and now fall under the regulations.

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