Law Students

Since we first co-authored the HIPAA Survival Guide, HHS has provided key guidance regarding the definition of meaningful use under the HITECH Act. Compliance with HIPAA's Privacy and Security Rules is now an integral part of the meaningful use definition. It is also part of the 2011 meaningful use objectives. Providers and facilities must ensure adequate privacy and security protection for personal health information if they expect to receive HITECH EHR incentive payments.

HHS' HITECH meaningful use definition can be broken down into three principal components: 1) five policy priorities; 2) care goals; and 3) a set of objectives and measures for each two year window (2011, 2013, and 2015). Lost in much of the HITECH discussion to date are the transformational privacy implications of HITECH's Subtitle D-Privacy, which provides the central point of intersection between HITECH, HIPAA and meaningful use. Compliance with Subtitle D is therefore critical with respect to providers and facilities receiving ARRA's promised EHR incentives.

In short, in order to understand the non paper tiger HIPAA you must understand Subtitle D. The remainder of this article will highlight key sections of this Subtitle and provide an explanation as to why HITECH/HIPAA compliance is a "wicked problem."

To read the complete article click Read More ...

To stay current on the HITECH Act and its quickly changing regulatory scheme visit the HITECH Survival Guide website and/or sign up for Digital Business Law Group's free monthly compliance newsletter. Also, check out a FREE EHR Checklist and a FREE Online Backup Checklist, both are provided from HSG affiliates.

Need documents that will help with your compliance initiatives? If so then check out the HSG Store.