Skip to main content

Chaplaincy & Recent HIPAA Changes

Recent changes strengths the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and are designed to ease the public’s overall comfort with electronic medical recording keeping. One of the most significant changes to the HIPAA regulations is the new rules concerning the breach of protected health information (PHI).

What is a Breach?

A breach is, generally, an impermissible use or disclosure under the Privacy Rule that compromises the security or privacy of the protected health information such that the use or disclosure poses a significant risk of financial, reputational, or other harm to the affected individual.

What is an example of a breach PHI?

  • An employee accesses the record of a patient outside the performance of their job duties.
  • An unencrypted laptop containing PHI is lost or stolen.
  • PHI is sent to the wrong fax, mailing address, an email address or printer.
What happens if a breach occurs?
  • Generally speaking, your institution’s HIPAA compliance officer will need to be notified of all suspected breaches immediately upon discovery of the breach.
  • The HIPAA officer determines if there exists a reportable breach.
  • If a reportable breach of PHI has occurred your institution’s HIPAA compliance office handles the notification.
  • Every individual whose unsecured PHI has been breached must be notified in writing as soon as feasible and within a 60 day period.
  • Breaches are required to be reported to Health and Human Services (HHS).
  • If less than 500 individuals are affected: log and report annually.
  • If more than 500 individuals are affected: HHS must be notified at the same time the patient is notified. The media must also be notified.
How can Clinical Chaplains help prevent breaches of PHI?

Be alert about your responsibilities to protect PHI while carrying out your tasks. Take special care in these situations:
  • When faxing be sure to always use your institution’s official fax cover sheet and reconfirm the recipient’s fax number before transmittal.
  • Do not put PHI, including patient stickers and medication labels, in regular trash. Shred or place in privacy bins for special disposal.
  • When retrieving information from the printer or faxing PHI determine each page corresponds to the correct patient
  • Double check the name of the patient before you put information in the envelopes for mailing.
  • Log off your computer prior to stepping away from it.
  • Use password protection and encryption features for your Blackberry, cell phone and other mobile devices such as thumb drives and CDs.
  • Only store PHI on mobile devices when absolutely necessary for your institution’s business purposes and delete as soon as feasible.
  • Encrypt any email containing PHI sent outside your institution.
  • Never share your password or use someone else’s sign on information as this could lead to you being disciplined by your institution.

For further information on the new HIPAA standards follow the link below:
US Department of Health and Human Services
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

CMS Regulations Relating to Clinical Pastoral Education & Medicare Pass-Through Payments

There remains considerable confusion concerning which Clinical Pastoral Education training programs qualify to receive Medicare Payments. The leadership of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education has not acted in a responsible manner to clear up the misunderstanding; promoted by ACPE leaders; that only ACPE accredited Doe recognized programs qualify for such payments. Clinical Pastoral Education training programs accredited by The College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy also qualify for such payments. Medicare officials do not support the ACPE only claim. We quote a response provided from the Medicare office: “The regulations cite the ACPE as an example of a national professional organization that would be sufficient as the accrediting body. However, the regulation at section 413.85(e) also specifically state that the accrediting bodies are “not limited to” the cited organizations. While programs that are accredited by the ACPE meet CMS definition of an Approved Nur...
Read more

The Spiritual Care Collaborative Dissolved

The organization that set out to change the face of Professional Chaplaincy and the Clinical Pastoral training movement, the Spiritual Care Collaborative, has been dissolved as a corporation.  “On May 14, 2012, the Steering Committee of the Spiritual Care Collaborative (SCC) voted to dissolve its formal Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) structure.”   In its founding the SCC was hailed as a new breakthrough in collaboration between pastoral care and counseling organizations.   The SCC announced that it was formed to “provide a common voice for professional pastoral care, counseling and education organizations in the United States and Canada.  With the goal “to speak with a unified voice as clinically trained, qualified pastoral/spiritual caregivers who serve as chaplains, pastoral educators and counselors in specialized settings including hospitals and other healthcare organizations, military, prisons, and the business workplace.” Rather than creating h...
Read more

Supervisor In Training Forum

David Fleenor has created an online discussion forum for Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisors-in-Training. The forum provides an opportunity to discuss all issues related to the process of becoming a CPE Supervisor. David suggests the forum will a venue to discuss issues of training, theory papers, committee meetings, theology, disappointments, and celebrations. The forum is limited to current supervisors in training and those that have been out of training for up to two years whether or not their training resulted in certification. The forum is open to members of the College of Pastoral Supervision & Psychotherapy as well as those in the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education. For more information about the forum visit the link which follows: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CPESITS/ You may also contact David Fleenor at: The Rev. David W. Fleenor 1 East 29th Street New York, NY 10016 By Telephone: 646.942.0623
Read more