A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Just spoke to a lawyer - about the new HIPPA laws in place.

Posted: Jan 13, 2010

I spoke to a lawyer who knows some of the circumstances we will all face with the new HIPPA laws. If you type a report and typed in a fax number or cc to a certain individual and it is wrong and gets sent to (that pizza company in the video), it all depends how the hospital, doctor, HIPPA and anyone else concerned on how they want to proceed with this situation.

If the doctor clearly states a fax number and an MT put the fax number in wrong and there are ways of finding out who did what (probably by listening to the report), YOU CAN BE FINED AT 2,500 OR 25,000 OR EVEN UP 250,000.

If there was a blank in a report and was QA'd by a person and did not catch the fax number, they can lose their jobs and be fined along with the MT and whoever else has touched that report. The HIPPA laws are to more or less COVER THE PATIENT, DICTATOR/DOCTOR AND HOSPITAL'S BUTTS. They might be fined, but us MT's, QA, MME's will be fined and very well lose our jobs.

If the doctor states a fax number and he stated it wrong and an MT typed it in, doctor is as at fault and we are considered SAFE!!!

As for the other countries typing reports, if a QA, MME, and whoever else looks at that report and if it has a wrong fax number, CC's, ADT name, then the QA and MME can be fined and may lose their job, etc., because they did not catch it. It all depends how the HIPPA, hospital, doctor, lawyers what to proceed with this mistake.

Sorry, I am tired and stressed out and hope this all makes sense!!!

BASICALLY, WE ALL HAVE TO BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL IN WHAT WE PUT IN OUR ADT SCREEN, TYPE WORD FOR WORD WHEN THE DICTATOR GIVES AN ADDRESS IN THE REPORT, THE CC'S TO WHOEVER THE DICTATOR WANTS REPORT SENT TO, FAX NUMBERS, HOME NUMBERS, ETC.

I do know, from months ago, certain hospitals are getting sick and tired of our ADT info not being put in properly and that is another CONCERN WE HAVE TO BE AWARE OF!!!

I do not know about you all, but I do not get paid enough to live my life let alone pay for the fines. Shoot, I do not have 2,500 in the bank let alone 25,000 or even 250,000. And you can be fired from your job easily if you are not paying attention.

Good Luck to all!!!

fines - xyzzzz

[ In Reply To ..]
QAs now MMEs have been told in the past to fill in the blanks and go on unless it's full qa where everything is proofed. Very little chance to catch wrong info on non full qa reports.

fines - ae

[ In Reply To ..]
It should not be our job to make sure the ADT information is correct. The dictator should enter in the proper information or there should be a clerk on the hospital's end to make sure the information is correct. We do not get paid for that.

It's not our responsiblity to put anything in the ADT screen or report - other than what has been dictated.....nm

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:

new HIPPA - sm

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I think unless the ILPs are under 100% US QA on all reports, there are going to be a lot of them with critical errors and fines attached.

For reports not under 100% QA review, this is something that would have to be discovered at the hospital end of things and we are in the clear.

I'm not really concerned about it. I think as long as we do our jobs and transcribe as dictated outside of the obvious punctuation/formatting corrections, there won't be anything coming down on us at our level.

I'm actually a bit excited about these new HIPPA laws, as a lot of the ILPs won't be able to comply with such strict standards. I think this will mean less of our MT work being outsourced, and more what is actually outsourced going back through our QA/MME department.

I see this as an opportunity to take back the workload that has been lost in recent years to these ILPs.

I think that all ILPs' transcriptions are 100% QAed, always, don't you agree?..nm - ILP

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nm

no they are not - hocuspocus

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They are only 100% QA'd until they pass their audits. Granted some never do pass and that makes the MMEs life and pay check hell.

CCs - TedEBear

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At my other job, if a CC is requested and this person is not in the data base, we are to pend it to QA so they can check into it further. I like that much better than the MQ's way of doing this.

Here's how I'll handle the new HIPAA law..... - Kiki

[ In Reply To ..]
Refuse to send ANY cc's at ALL. First of all, since when is that our job? Do we get compensated for that? No. We get paid to transcribe the medical report. Second, if the hospitals want to make sure the correct person gets the report, let THEM send them out.

Since I know they will still expect us to do it, I'll do what I have been doing lately....unless the dictator gives first name, last name, spells it, and I'm 100% sure, I'm just typing it in manually (won't go out that way) even if I even suspect it is in the database.......

I foresee a serious clash with this new law and having ILPs.....and it just may finally be one in our favor.....although our jobs may boil down to simply checking every since report to ensure a correct CC. Sounds fun. NOT

I agree. - yippee

[ In Reply To ..]
I, for one, do not research addresses when the dictator says, "send a copy to Dr. so-and-so at blah blah blah practice in blah blah city."

I don't get paid for CCs, don't get paid for researching them either.

I type in "Dr. so and so" in the new CC field and send the report on.

I've been with MQ for far too long, and have never been told I had to research the addresses, fax numbers, etc.

If they aren't going to pay me for it, I'm not going to do it. They will get the bare minimum for CCs, and that's it.

It's bad enough we have to spend so much time researching terms spoken by a mush mouth or on a system full of static just to try to make sense of what was said.

I agree, why spend so much time on this, maybe get it wrong, get fined and/or fired!...nm - cc and header

[ In Reply To ..]
nm

What my lawyer said - Anon

[ In Reply To ..]
I'm not addressing some of those ridiculous videos about sharing medical info about celebrities or giving info to attorneys for a cut, but just the basic potential transcription/ demographic-type mistakes that ARE GOING TO HAPPEN. We're humans and all make mistakes.

He told me that since we are employees of MQ, have taxes withheld, we are acting as agents for MQ. They will be the ones who get sued, not us. They are the ones who have errors and omissions insurance. That's why they're giving us the scare tactics. Ultimately, the doctors/dictators are the ones who sign the reports. If they sign a report containing an error, they shouldn't sign it.

The only thing this latest atrocity is doing is making us too nervous to keep up our line rate, and causing a hugh headache for MME/QA from all the blanks we leave and demo/cc information we're now leaving out. Maybe this is the first step in the collapse of the house of cards.

I agree with anon. NM... - TedEBear

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