HIPAA and Document Imaging
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted in 1996 and has made quite an impression on the world of digital document imaging and forms processing. Any company as a covered entity of HIPAA needs to take certain precautions when outsourcing any aspect of their operations that deal with personnel health information (PHI.) There are two main components to HIPAA that deal directly with the outsourcing of document imaging and claims processing. Privacy issues and Administrative Simplification are of the utmost importance to HIPAA.
If you have been to doctor?s office the last few years, you probably have been asked to sign all kinds of new forms; these forms are HIPAA privacy forms. It does not end with privacy and disclosure forms, people handling medical information must take special precautions when handling private medical information. This information includes but is not limited claims, patient history files, and enrollment files.
Whenever dealing with a Document Imaging Service provider you should always ask them about their HIPAA policies and procedures. Every one of their employees needs to sign an agreement stating they are aware they are handling people?s PHI. The company should have a zero tolerance policy on distributing or reading anyone?s PHI. Every care and precaution must be taken to ensure PHI remains private.
Under the privacy rule of HIPAA there is a security rule which has three parts:
- Administrative Safeguards ? are policies and procedures designed to clearly show how an organization will comply with the HIPAA act.
- Physical Safeguards - Physical access to PHI must be restricted and controlled to guard against inappropriate access to such data.
- Technical Safeguards ? Any organization engaged in the handling of PHI must control access to computer systems and protect communications containing PHI. These communications must be protected against interception.
The primary goal of the Administrative Simplification portion of HIPAA is to simplify and streamline the administration of health care. Essentially, standards are created to facilitate various types of health care electronic transactions. No one insurer can ask any claims submitter to file in any other electronic formats other than those mandated by HIPAA.
A little bit of work up front will pay off in time. If you use an experienced service bureau or clearinghouse to process your claims, they will be able to convert your paper claims according to the standards set fourth by HIPAA with little effort. Once you successfully submit claims in the HIPAA standard ANSI 837 format, submitting to another insurer will be a piece of cake.
Under the old system, one health care provider could require all claims submissions to be in a HL7 format while another could require a custom text string. There were about 400 different ways to submit an electronic claim before HIPAA. Now there is one way, HIPAA's Way.
- Less setup for new claims submitters (One size fits all)
- Easier training for new staff
- Faster payments
If you feel the company you are doing business with is not serious about HIPAA, find another company to do business with. In the end you are responsible for the actions of your contracted vendors. Any vendor dealing with PHI is also considered a covered entity of HIPAA and therefore legally bound by the act.
We are a NY document imaging company dedicated to finding you the right solution for all your digital data needs. We believe in providing you with all the necessary information and expertise to help you make a sound decision regarding your data processing projects. For more information visit our website at http://www.paper-scanning-services.com
Labels: certification_hipaa, compliance_email_hipaa, hipaa_medical_record, hipaa_right, hipaa_violation
