The countdown of Total HIPAA’s most popular blogs of 2016 continues this week with #5 through #1. Not surprisingly–the top three are technical topics. If you have any topics you would like us to consider in 2017, please fill out the suggestion form at the end of this summary.
Top Ten Count Down Continued
Buddy Dyer, the mayor of Orlando, requested a waiver of the HIPAA rules following the June 12 shooting at Pulse Nightclub. A statement from HHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Kevin Griffis, explained the reason why the waiver was not needed in Orlando: “HIPAA allows health care professionals the flexibility to disclose limited health information to the public or media in appropriate circumstances. These disclosures, which are made when it is determined to be in the best interest of a patient, are permissible without a waiver to help identify incapacitated patients, or to locate family members of patients to share information about their condition. Disclosures are permissible to same sex, as well as opposite sex, partners.” In order to understand under what circumstances Mayor Dyer and healthcare providers should be concerned about HIPAA restrictions, we look at the Law in this blog.
HHS stated that patients have the right to access their ePHI and that Covered Entities must provide this access in the manner requested by the individual. While the Privacy Rule does allow the use of unencrypted email when communicating ePHI between the healthcare provider and the patient, we suggest you take the steps outlined in this blog to protect your patients’ ePHI while still giving them access to their information.
Covered Entities, Business Associates and Business Associate Subcontractors are required to protect the PHI they hold at rest, in storage and in transit. In this blog, we reviewed six HIPAA-compliant and affordable email encryption solutions with a focus on solutions for small businesses.
When it comes to your software, we know how you feel – if it’s not broken, why fix it? Upgrading is a pain! Upgrade one thing and your computer programs can collapse like a house of cards. In this instance, it is VERY important for your business security that you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer—NOW! As of January 12, 2016, Microsoft announced it was only supporting technical and security updates for Internet Explorer 11. What did this change mean to you?
Today everyone uses text messaging (“texting”) for easy and quick communication. It is a great tool for convenience and efficiency, but most users don’t realize that texting is an unencrypted form of communication that can be intercepted at any point in transmission. In this blog we reviewed four companies that offer secure messaging solutions for small to medium organizations using encryption to allow organizations to send PHI through text.
Thank you for your support on Social Media this year! As HHS continues to crack down with additional audits on both covered entities and business associates, our goal is to provide you with all the materials you need. Many of our blog topics come directly from questions sent by our clients and followers.
Have a question that you want answered? Let us know what blog topics you would like us to cover in 2017.
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