UNDER HIPAA WILLFUL NEGLECT NOW HAS MINIMUM MANDATORY FINES

Under the final Omnibus Rule that will start being enforced on September 23, 2013 things have changed. The department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is going to start enforcing the final Omnibus Rules. The fines have increased for those practices that are not following the new regulations. The OCR will determine whether a medical practice is complying with the new HIPAA rules and regulations. The days of informal resolutions are gone. Minimum mandatory fines for “willful Neglect” start at $10,000.

 

What is considered “willful neglect”? Medical practices that do not perform a yearly risk assessment or that do not have an updated policies and procedures manual for the HIPAA privacy and security rules are considered in “willful neglect”. Practices that are not aware of, and have not documented their adherence to the HIPAA definition of minimum necessarty could face penalties of up to $125,000. Medical practices must start paying attention to the ins and outs of HIPAA regulations. Not being up to date with the new regulations can ruin all the hard work that has been invested in building a practice. The government sees HIPAA as a set of rules that medical practices must put in place in order to guarantee their patients access to their medical records and provide good security measures to protect patient information.

 

At Vitruvian MedPro, working with HITECH asscociates HIPAA — compliance simplified — is our mission and is accomplished using our 8 step, full turnkey HIPAA Compliance Kit. Starting with a Security Risk Assessment the HIPAA Compliance Kit also gives you the tools and documents you need for Business Associates, a set of customizable policies and procedures, staff and HIPAA Compliance Officer Training, a Breach Response Plan, Contingency Plan that meets the requirements of the HIPAA Privacy Rule, complete set of HIPAA documents including the required updated Notice of Privacy Practices, and a Risk Management Plan.

 

At Vitruvian MedPro we help medical practices stay out of willful neglect by providing HIPAA Compliance consulting services. As part of our HIPAA Compliance consulting services, we help medical practices perform and document a risk analysis. We provide medical practices with a thorough risk management report describing their risks and vulnerabilities with PHI. A free consultation of 30 minutes or less will let you know whether your practice would be found under willful neglect in the case of an audit.

 

For more information on Vitruvian MedPro’s HIPAA Compliance kit visit: HIPAA Compliance Kit.

 

At Vitruvian MedPro, a Massachusetts based medical billing and practice management consulting company, we help medical practices improve cash flow and focus on patient care by providing medical billing, medical coding, and patient collection services. Visit our web site at Vitruvian MedPro