Changes in the office for civil rights enforcement policy on telehealth remote communications in response to COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus, the cause of COVID-19, has sent shockwaves throughout the world, shuttered many businesses essentially overnight, and has left billions living worldwide in quarantine. Not surprisingly, the health care industry has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article focuses on how COVID-19 has influenced the Office for Civil Rights' (OCR's) enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules as they relate to telehealth remote communications, and opines about whether the COVID-19-related changes to HIPAA Privacy Rule and Security Rule enforcement might last beyond the current crisis.

Comply with regulations or risk paying hefty fines: ten tips for choosing call recording to help ensure compliance.

Medical practices are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for not complying with various governmental regulations, including a variety of HIPAA rules and credit card compliance. One solution to help reduce this risk and avoid fines is to use call recording to help ensure compliance. This article provides readers with key considerations for choosing and implementing a call recording solution for their medical practices to ensure that it will be compliant with key regulations. These tips include being able to customize call recording policies and procedures for their unique needs; providing secure, private storage; allowing easy access for authorized users; secure sharing of call recordings; regulatory compliance training; disaster recovery; and maintaining an audit-ready and compliant-evident state at all times.

Health information privacy and health information technology in the US correctional setting.

Electronic health records and electronic health information exchange are essential to improving quality of care, reducing medical errors and health disparities, and advancing the delivery of patient-centered medical care. In the US correctional setting, these goals are critical because of the high numbers of Americans affected, yet the use of health information technology is quite limited. In this article, I describe the legal environment surrounding health information sharing in corrections by focusing on 2 key federal privacy laws: the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the federal Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records laws. In addition, I review stakeholder concerns and describe possible ways forward that enable electronic exchange while ensuring protection of inmate information and legal compliance.

A primer for health care managers: data sanitization, equipment disposal, and electronic waste.

In this article, security regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act concerning data sanitization and the disposal of media containing stored electronic protected health information are discussed, and methods for effective sanitization and media disposal are presented. When disposing of electronic media, electronic waste-or e-waste-is produced. Electronic waste can harm human health and the environment. Responsible equipment disposal methods can minimize the impact of e-waste. Examples of how health care organizations can meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations while also behaving responsibly toward the environment are provided. Examples include the environmental stewardship activities of reduce, reuse, reeducate, recover, and recycle.

Changes in the institutional review board submission process for multicenter research over 6 years.

Although collaborative research across sites is essential to increase the statistical power and generalizability of research findings, the need to undergo multiple institutional review board (IRB) reviews is a challenge. The purposes of this paper are to describe changes in the IRB submission process in 2 national multisite studies before and after the implementation of the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy rule (2002 and 2008) and to discuss implications for policy and practice related to human subjects research. In the second study, there was a shorter mean approval time and reduced variability in the decision about the level of review, the mean number of pages per application doubled, and an increased proportion of IRBs required conflict of interest and data use agreements. Possible approaches to further enhance the efficiency and streamlining of the research review process are suggested.

Who'll run your IT?

Hospitals already face a shortage of qualified health IT workers, a shortage that will only intensify with new HIPAA rules, the transition to ICD-10 coding and, most importantly, government pressure to ramp up EHRs. Many initiatives are under way to ease the potential crisis, but hospitals will have to be creative in cultivating talent and deploying limited staff and financial resources to generate the greatest return.

The psychiatric medical record, HIPAA, and the use of electronic medical records.

This article addresses the practical and legal issues related to the psychiatric medical record, with an emphasis on the issues related to confidentiality. Implications of HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) legislation for the practice of child and adolescent psychiatry are addressed. The advantages and disadvantages of electronic medical records are reviewed, with guidelines for selecting software for solo and group practices.

HIPAA's effects on US healthcare.

PURPOSE: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act implementation in the USA caused waves in the medical world about documentation storage, flow and access. Protecting patients from information falling into the wrong hands is admirable, but the Act has influenced more than just documentation; it has slowed the research process and complicated basic US medical care. This article aims to discuss Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act's effects on documentation and patient care and future US healthcare options. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A chronological approach is used to lay out the Act's effects. Using process flow maps, the pre- and post-Act environment is analyzed to discover differences in the two processes. Then a critique of the new environment leads to future movement recommendations by the US government and the healthcare industry. FINDINGS: True to the US government's track record, by the time the Act was passed, it was already outdated in terms of IT management capabilities. In addition to trying to comply with these outdated practices, the Act's wording is so vague that hospital staff are not sure with what they are even complying. The Act could be improved with some simple changes to wording and updating. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: This article attempts to take a massive problem with far reaching implications, drill down to the key issues and make managerial recommendations based on findings. This provides a more detailed problem view that can only be understood at a high level owing to its complexity. Importantly, the key issues developed in the article support US government reform for legislation, which is not an easy task. There were studies available on the Act's cost to patients, hospitals, clinics and general costs in the USA. However, all the research was site specific and easily contradicted by other sources. Additionally, source reliability was questionable at best, as publications came from specific hospitals and clinics. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Throughout the study two themes were clear--the Act's outdated nature and vague wording. The more research that was done, the more confusing the information began to get, it seems even experts have a hard time understating and complying with the Act. One thing is clear. The Act is confusing and outdated. Because the problem is so large and fragmented, people are not sure where to start fixing the predicament. Arming US hospitals, clinics and doctors with basic knowledge can give them a common springboard to start changing the current environment. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: It is clear that the problem is large and confusing. Consolidating research results seems a valuable tool to help understand what is wrong with US healthcare. This article makes a case that updating and improving the directive's ambiguous nature helps create a less frustrating US healthcare system.

HIPAA administrative simplification: modifications to medical data code set standards to adopt ID-10-CM and ICD-10-PCS. Final rule.

This final rule adopts modifications to two of the code set standards adopted in the Transactions and Code Sets final rule published in the Federal Register pursuant to certain provisions of the Administrative Simplification subtitle of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Specifically, this final rule modifies the standard medical data code sets (hereinafter "code sets") for coding diagnoses and inpatient hospital procedures by concurrently adopting the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM) for diagnosis coding, including the Official ICD-10-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, as maintained and distributed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hereinafter referred to as ICD-10-CM, and the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Procedure Coding System (ICD-10-PCS) for inpatient hospital procedure coding, including the Official ICD-10-PCS Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, as maintained and distributed by the HHS, hereinafter referred to as ICD-10-PCS. These new codes replace the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification, Volumes 1 and 2, including the Official ICD-9-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, hereinafter referred to as ICD-9-CM Volumes 1 and 2, and the International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification, Volume 3, including the Official ICD-9-CM Guidelines for Coding and Reporting, hereinafter referred to as ICD-9-CM Volume 3, for diagnosis and procedure codes, respectively.