Patient Privacy:
Follow These 6 Tips To Sidestep HIPAA Notice Costs
Published on Thu Oct 18, 2012
Avoid spending thousands to clean up HIPAA compliance issues.How would your home care agency handle the notification process if you breached HIPAA laws? The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has had to notify 13,775 Medicare beneficiaries that their privacy had been breached (see related story, this page). That process likely cost the agency and/or its contractors well into the six figures -- if not higher -- in employee resources, mailing costs, and legal consulting fees.Even a much smaller breach could put your company into financial disarray, considering the fact that you'd not only want legal advice, but you'd have to begin the notification process. Luckily, you don't have to spend a fortune to comply with the HIPAA rules up-front, which can save you problems down the line. Consider these eight tips to ensure that you're in step with patient privacy.1. Ensure that each employee has a separate username and password for [...]