Home Health & Hospice Week

OIG investigates CMS's ability -- or lack of -- to keep benes' PHI private.Maintaining the privacy of your patient base may seem like a daunting task, but imagine keeping all 40+ million Medicare beneficiaries protected under HIPAA. Ever wonder how CMS keeps up with privacy requirements so consistently? Well, the agency makes mistakes just like you do, and is subject to the same notification regulations as your organization.Between 2009 and 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that it had 14 breaches of protected health information (PHI) requiring notification to the 13,775 Medicare beneficiaries affected, according to an HHS Office of In-spector General report, "CMS Response to Breach-es and Medical Identity Theft," released this month.Background: The Recovery Act requires covered entities to notify any individual whose PHI has been breached. If a breach impacts 500 or more residents of a state or jurisdiction, the entity must also notify media outlets [...]