Home Health & Hospice Week

Many HIPAA regulations are now applicable to your business associates. If you've been lax in overseeing your HIPAA compliance, now is the time to shore up those processes. The stimulus bill, known as the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" (ARRA),strengthens the HIPAA requirements that health care providers--including home care providers--face, increases penalties for privacy breaches, and creates restrictions on how you can share protected health information. Important: The law will require your business associates to implement policies that establish administrative and technical safeguards; those associates could face fines or penalties if they breach the HIPAA rules. "ARRA does not distinguish among business associates," says attorney Edward Leeds with Ballard, Spahr, Andrews & Ingersoll in Philadelphia. "To the extent that ARRA applies the privacy and security rules to any business associate, it applies them to all business associates," he says. However, that doesn't mean that all HIPAA requirements apply [...]