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Question: If new HIPAA laws are going to come down - hard on MTs for the heinous crime of - sm


Posted: Dec 23, 2009

sending a copy of the report to the wrong doctor, what about sending all this work offshore?  What am I not understanding?  If sending a copy to the wrong Dr. Smith constitutes a huge breach of security, then sending people's health records and personal information offshore constitutes a GIGANTIC breach of security. 

 

HIPAA/HITECH - Happy MT Robin

[ In Reply To ..]
Personally, I'll believe the hype about lawsuits, fines, etc., when I really see it happening.

What about health records going into people's homes? - MT1

[ In Reply To ..]
Now that's a big breach if there ever was one. Oh, wait a minute, that's us!!!

Better into an American home than an Indian - or Pakistani sweatshop. nm

[ In Reply To ..]

Not a HIPAA violation per se, but... - Tech Support

[ In Reply To ..]
...there are many significant problems that come into play when the MT is transcribing on her own personal system rather than one that is owned and provided by the MTSO.

Sending a copy to the wrong physician... - Tech Support

[ In Reply To ..]
...might be a violation of a particular covered entity's policies, but under the Privacy Rule itself this would come under the heading of an "incidental disclosure" - i.e., unintentional disclosures to unauthorized persons.

It is not much different from a situation in which a physician asks a unit clerk for "the chart on Mr. Smith" (his patient) and she hands him the chart on a different "Mr. Smith" (not his patient). In fact, this would technically be a more egregious disclosure (the whole record instead of just a report), but it would be nonsense to imagine that HIPAA intended for this to be a "reportable" incident.

What is required with respect to incidental disclosures is that the entity will implement "reasonable measures" to prevent and/or mitigate them. The entity is not expected to guarantee that they will never happen.

Under the "stricter standard" rule, a covered entity CAN treat an incident like this as a violation of its own policies/procedures, but that's what it would be - not a HIPAA violation per se.

Once the EHR is fully implemented, this sort of thing will be all but eliminated. First, there will be greatly reduced need for copies in the first place. Second, the patient's EHR will include the identifiers of all physicians who have treated her and it will be a simple matter for the system to restrict copies to those physicians, generating an error or exception if a copy is requested for a physician whose identifier is not on the patient's list. It will also be necessary for the patient's EHR to exist in the remote system where the copy is being sent or the transmission would fail on that basis as well. (Paper copies will be a thing of the past.)


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