Medical Transcription: H is for the HITECH Act
Before anyone is kind enough to point it out, I do realize that our ABC series is taking a letter out of order on this one, but I thought it was important to do it. The past week I have been working a lot on the revision of my book, “Stedman’s Guide to the HIPAA Privacy Rule.” This time around, we are adding the security rule to the publication so it will be as lot more robust. If you’ve been following along in the past few months, we now also have the HITECH Act, which has made some significant changes to how HIPAA is implemented and what is considered compliant.
For six years now, I think our industry has flown on the mantra of “well, sure, we’re HIPAA compliant; after all, those rules REALLY basically apply to the covered entity. I have my business associate agreement and that means I’m covered.” With the HITECH Act becoming effective last week, that no longer applies. Those of us who may have small businesses (and yes, an independent contractor IS a business owner), now find ourselves facing some harsh reality. We are now classified as a covered entity under the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, which for many, means there has been a lot of scrambling in the past few months.
I’m curious how you are seeing this impact your world out there? If you are an employee, have you been told of new policies and procedures? Had new training? If you are an IC or a business owner (one in the same, in my opinion), have you rewritten your policies and procedures to be sure you are compliant? Do you have an identified privacy and security officer? If you’re using an FTP site for file transfers between you and your client, how has that changed, if at all?
I look forward to hearing from each of you. Post your comment here and let’s see how our world is reacting to these new changes!
Related posts:
- HIPAA and the HITECH Act: Are you Ready?
- HIPAA and HITECH: What’s a Medical Transcriptionist to do?
- HIPAA and HITECH Training and MT Week
- Medical Transcription: What Are You Passionate About?
- Medical Transcription: Tales From the Blogosphere
Tagged with: do you have a privacy and security officer • HIPAA • HITECH Act • medical transcription • privacy rule • security rule
Filed under: ABCs of Medical Transcription • Credentialing • Professional Development • Technology
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As far as HIPAA and confidentiality goes, my #1 rule always has and always will be that I don’t mix business with anything else. During the period of time (perhaps 30-60 minutes a night) that my husband is in the same room I am working in, he cannot see my computer screen, I wear a headset that is quite soundproof (nothing at ALL like the headset he wears that I can actually hear the music he is listening to on “from the outside”), and I don’t talk about what I’m doing. It is private, personal, and he has no “need to know.” He isn’t the person or company I have a contract with, and he doesn’t know anything about medical transcription or medicine (other than from his personal standpoint of occasionally being a patient). Even when I connect with the lady who is the supervisor of the transcriptionists at the hospital that I contract with, there are things that are never mentioned over the phone (no patient names, for example). I actually use a work station provided by the hospital, and I trust that it is as secure as they have been able to make it. It cannot even be connected to a printer, and there isn’t even an email account associated with it! I use my p.c. for emailing questions (again omitting any personally identifying patient information and only dealing with generalities, generally of a technical “transcription” nature), as well as being in contact with her by phone. I don’t know if any of that makes sense to anyone but me, but I guess the thing is just to remember that what we transcribe couldn’t be any more confidential…and what you DO say and WHO you say it to is necessarily limited by security and the law. Violate it and it could cost you your job, your contract, time in jail, and the money you work so hard to make!
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Kathy Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Good points, Sherry. I think those who are employees do have it a bit easier with these new regulations as the employer will take care of it for them. With those who are independent contractors, the rules have just changed for everyone and that will be the challenge.
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It’s funny that you mentioned this topic. I’m currently a student at MTEC and have volunteered as Web Coordinator for a student’s group of AHDI called the New Professional’s Alliance. Anyway, one of my responsibilities as the web coordinator is coming up with topics of the week/month for students and new professionals. I just emailed this exact subject as an idea for a possible first topic of the week discussion to the group coordinators! I also just attended a 6-week webinar given by Brenda Hurley on this entire issue. It was very interesting and very helpful, as I will definitely know how to set up my office and how to put this information in my resume so that any potential employer will know that I am aware of the new laws.
Great topic!
-Irene
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Kathy Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
That’s a great idea, Irene. Brenda’s course is an awesome one and she’s on top of this as well!
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