HIPPA regs

My hubby's hospice was told by their computer geek they should consider updating their computers from windows 98 to XP as it has more security features. Which is true.

renerian

I am the DON of a county health department. Our HD does electronic billing, so we are a HIPAA covered entity. I am also the HIPAA Privacy Officer, so I was responsible for ensuring that my HD became HIPAA compliant. I can not begin to tell you how much work went into this! HIPAA affects my HD (especially me) on a daily basis. I am also from Indiana and was surprised that ISDH was little help in our HIPAA compliance.

ANY PERSON, and they do mean ANY PERSON who is involved with patient care and patients chart in any way, ( not just a billing issue) this includes all staff, CNA's to housekeeping...as far as confidentiality is concerned, HIPAA affects all levels. Some people see HIPAA as only a billing issue, and it surely affects all areas when there is new implimentation of strict regulation of not being able to release any patient info to anyone, even family, unless there is a signed consent by the patient, or the person requesting has the POA for the OK. Fines will exceed 20,000 for a violation of the new HIPAA laws. There is a lot that is involved in the compliance process for sure. I had to help impliment this in our facility as well, and as a community educator I have spent a great deal of time in servicing other facilities on this as well. It certainly has been a piece of work. There is a lot to learn. The CDC has a good link for HIPAA information. http://www.cdc.org

Just thought I'd share....:)