Physicians --
Do You Know Why You Should Shred? |
Physicians
Everyday you are
responsible for the well-being and care
of your patients. They come for your
attention to their medical needs,
guidance, professionalism, and peace of
mind. You are concerned with their
health and welfare and become a part of
their family. As a professional you are
accountable for doing what is best for
them.
Approved
Information Destruction, Inc. abides by
the same objectives in ensuring your
practice sensitive information is
properly secure. We are your partner
in providing secure document destruction
of vital information, which could be
harmful to your patients and practice.
We have a strong understanding of the
current government regulations (HIPAA)
concerning document retention and
destruction. We review your
requirements and can easily establish a
destruction program to suit your needs.
Don’t allow your information and
practice to go in the trash.
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA)
The Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a
United States federal law
that requires health care organizations
to “maintain reasonable and appropriate,
technical, and physical
safeguards to prevent intentional or
unintentional use or disclosure of
protected health information.”
Protected health information (PHI)
includes patient medical records,
patient logs, insurance, billing and
other personally identifiable health
information.
What does HIPAA have to do with
information management?
The entire legislation addresses
information management issues as do two
more specific rules, the Privacy
Rule and the Security Rule. Both Rules
are lengthy documents available from the
US Department of Health and Human
Services. The HIPAA Privacy Rule
requires health care organizations to
protect the use transmission and storage
of individually identifiable health
information including names, contact
information, license numbers, account
numbers, dates of birth and other
information. HIPAA compliant
organizations must also designate a
privacy officer and ensure all staff are
trained and understand privacy
issues. The HIPAA Security Rule is
effective April 2005. This rule
specifies administrative, technical and
physical security procedures to ensure
the confidentiality, intergrity and
availability of electronic protected
health information.
What do companies have to do to comply
with HIPAA?
Under HIPAA, health care organizations
must, among other steps, implement
policies and procedures
related to accessing information to
ensure individually identifiable
information is properly safeguarded and
not improperly disclosed. Under the
HIPAA Privacy Rule, health care
organizations are required to have
Business Associate Agreements with
outside suppliers that assist with
activities that would give the
supplier access to protected heath
information. For example, companies
involved in claims processing and
administration, billing, transcription,
legal, financial and records management
services. Criminal Penalties
for non-compliance are outlined under
Section 1177 of the Act: “(a) A person
who knowingly and in
violation of this part: 1) uses or
causes to be used a unique health
identifier; 2) obtains individually
identifiable health information relating
to an individual; or 3) discloses
individually identifiable health
information to another person, shall be
punished as provided in subsection (b).
(b) A person described in
subsection (a) shall: 1) be fined not
more than $50,000, imprisoned not more
than 1 year, or both; 2) if the
offense is committed under false
pretenses, be fined not more than
$100,000, imprisoned not more than 5
years, or both; and 3) if the offense is
committed with intent to sell, transfer,
or use individually identifiable health
information for commercial advantage,
personal gain, or malicious harm, be
fined not more than $250,000, imprisoned
not more than 10 years, or both.”
Examples
of Items to Shred due to HIPAA 
·
Patient Medical Records
·
Billing Records
·
Prescriptions
·
Insurance Records
·
X-Rays
·
Computer Disks
·
Sign In / Registration Forms
·
Hard Drives
·
Personal Health Information (PHI)
A.I.D. in Identity Theft Protection"