HIPAA info from website and posts below - Dinosaur

I watched the HIPAA state law video last night and I have to admit, it ticked me off.  I have never in all my years in the business, ever met one MT who would even consider doing any of those things. The guy in a bar, I mean really?! Not too mention the QMZ seeking to buy movie star info (now that was a pretty lame cover for that company, and I don't think they buy information), In any case, the scenario was stupid.  I came to this board to vent but SusieQA beat me to it.  I thought about the test and the video and I agree with Shipwrecked, these are scare tactics. If MQ tells you something,it is always a good idea to check into it further because chances are you are only getting part of the picture.

SusieQA is also right, it was heavy on the "send to QA," but then they will get you for your submission rate.  There were several informative posts on this subject, one poster had law experience I believe, another spoke to an attorney.  Some say we MTs would be held responsible, some say the doctor/dictator would be responsible, some think the Q would be responsible.  All good points, but still many questions.

I really have to take issue with the ILPs, I have seen some of those reports come back after they have been through several offshore versions of QA, some of those mistakes would have killed the patient! So they signed the "we promise to follow HIPAA laws" paper, what does that mean to them? Absolutely nothing, because they know they will not be prosecuted for it.  In my post to SusieQA I included 2 links to stories that make this point loud and clear, one of which was a few people in India (floor supervisors) who were selling medical records of patients from a British hospital.  It is not the American MTs HIPAA needs to be concerned about, they need to focus their attention on other parts of the globe.

Since the Q gave us limited info (giving us just the scary stuff) I thought I would seek out more info on my own, and what better place than the HIPAA website.  The poster who spoke to their lawyer and stated that these new laws were mainly to protect the doctor and the hospital, so far I find to be correct.  There is a lot of information there and I have only been at it for several hours  since last night and just scratched the surface. I found a section that focused on patient rights and one of the things that surprised me was that you can ask your doctor not to share your private records with anyone else in the clinic/hospital but the doctor has the right to refuse to do so. How is that keeping my info private?  I have to admit, I have been focusing mostly on the BAA (the business associate thing) portion, but so far the doctor is golden. 

A few posters made mention about voice files.  It has been a while since my technical days, but the last I knew these systems run on memory, like our PCs.  They were designed to automatically delete voice files according to memory used.  If there was a lot of new dictation and the system needed memory it could delete transcribed voice files in a day or less to make room for new dictations.  If there was a very slow period, the voice files may be retained for up to 30 days.  The last I knew no voice file was permanent unless it was manually locked, and most of us know that the MQ minute is about 6 months, and by then the voice file has long since been deleted.  I can tell you now where that axe is going to fall. 

The link to the HIPAA site is below, it will bring up the BAA portion but you can navigate the site from there, but read it first, some very interesting info there.  If anyone finds something that would hold the doctor/dictator responsible, or gets us off the hook, please post it.  There is so much information there, it would take me 2 months to go through it all on my own.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/faq/smaller_providers_and_businesses/index.html#bas

Again, I've been awake for too long, please forgive my mistakes.