HIPAA requires that healthcare providers maintain administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect patient information. This safeguard requirement has many physicians’ attorneys worried that their clients are violating HIPAA on a regular basis.
How A Social Media Policy Can Protect Your Practice
While social media can be a beneficial marketing tool, it is important for rheumatologists to address the proper ways to use this outreach both inside and outside the workplace through a specific media policy
RHEUMATOLOGY PRACTICE PEARLS: Is Your Practice Ready for 5010?
If your practice electronically submits administrative transactions to verify patient insurance eligibility, file claims, or send or receive remittance either directly to insurance companies or through a clearinghouse, the transaction version for that system will have to be updated by January 1, 2012. The current version 4010 is outdated and cannot accommodate the necessary business transactions for physician practices and healthcare facilities.
Managing Patient Records
Physician practices handle patient records that contain sensitive information—including financial, demographic, and medical data—on a day-to-day basis. This type of information can put a practice, as well as the patient, at risk if not handled properly. Rheumatology practices should make sure that they have policies and procedures in place for keeping and distributing patient records. In fact, the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has set a national standard for the privacy of health information.
HHS Enforces Stricter Rules on HIPAA
As of February 17, 2010, entities covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), such as group health plans and their business associates, will have to take certain actions to ensure continued compliance with the privacy and security provisions of the act.