Home Health & Hospice Week

More HIPAA audits are on the way — but they won’t affect you directly yet.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Division of National Standards is launching a “Compliance Review Program,” aka, more HIPAA audits, CMS says in a provider message. In April, HHS will randomly select nine HIPAA-covered entities for reviews, but they will be a mix of health plans and clearinghouses.

Ahead: Providers’ turn for more random audits will come this year as well, however. “In 2019, providers will be able to participate in a separate pilot program on a voluntary basis,” CMS says.

“Moving forward, the Compliance Review Program will conduct periodic reviews with randomly selected entities to assess compliance,” CMS says. “The program supplements HHS’s current complaint-based approach to enforcing the use of standards for electronic transactions.”