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Tougher HIPAA Rules around HITECH

BayBiotech.NET
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ( HITECH), intended to promote adoption of information technology for maintenance of electronic health records and incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was signed into law on Feb. 17, 2009. The key points of the provisions are:
1. Tracking the medical information disclosure: According to the new legislation, physicians will be required to track any disclosure of a patient's medical information. Previously regulations allowed physicians to disclose patient information for the purpose of treatment, billing or health care, but they were not required to track when that information was disclosed. This provision kicks in for current users on Jan. 1, 2014, and then patients will be able to request an accounting of disclosures of their electronic personal health information three years from the date of the request, potentially dating back to 2011.

2. Rules regarding security breaches new legislation require practices to post information about security breaches if a breach affects 10 or more patients. If a security breach affects 500 or more patients, practices must notify all of their patients, a local media outlet, and the HHS secretary. New enforcement also escalates the fines for the security breaches ranging anywhere between $100- $1.5 million.
Thus the new legislation provides more control to the patients over the handling of their health care records, but increases the costs and risks for a health care facility for protecting the health information. This will also mean that health care facilities will have to spend more resources and develop infrastructure to keep the electronic health care records secure. This regulation also opens avenues for the emergence of contract health care management facilities that can be used to outsource handling of the patient’s health care information and thus will help save resources and will keep the costs manageable for the health care facilities.
(Ref: www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/)

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