Common Questions we’ve received from clients about HIPAA Compliance changes.
Q: If you have a deceased patient, does HIPAA still apply?
A: Yes, the medical record remains confidential regardless of the
patient’s status.
Q: What are the rules for emailing or texting protected health information (PHI) to outside vendors?
A: It must be under a Business Associates Agreeement and it must have an encrypted secure line. Standard text messaging is not HIPAA compliant.
The Balance Budget Act of 1997 enacted certain financial limitations on all therapy services at all facilities except hospital outpatient departments. A section in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 extended those limitations, but also applied them to hospital outpatient settings. In addition, the Act established a requirement for manual medical review by the Medicare Fiscal Intermediary (F.I.) of claims over $3,700.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicers (CMS) is empowered to survey an accredited provider to validate the accreditation process of the Accrediting Organization, e.g. The Joint Commission or DNV Healthcare. While all hospitals are subject to periodic accreditation surveys, the CMS surveys can be extremely rigorous and stressful. In many cases, hospital senior management may be singularly focused on the survey for a period of months.
HFS has found that while hospitals are usually well equipped to deal with periodic surveys from organizations such as The Joint Commission, they may not be as prepared for a CMS survey. There are two types of validation surveys: