RE: HIPAA

[Guest guest]

You might be right, but in a very limited way. I'm sure there are quite

a few of us here who use a billing agency to handle our HIPAA claims.

Most, if not all, billing agents are now using electronic clearing

houses to process claims. In that case, you fall under HIPAA since the

billing agent is an agent working on your behalf, and you need to have a

sub-contractor agreement with that person stating they have a need to

have access to patient info (PHI). Hypothetically, you can submit your

claims via mail, and once the October electronic filing requirement of

HIPAA gets into action, you might get paid in a few months or so, but

you would not be required to be HIPAA compliant, in the begining. At

some point, there are going to make everyone HIPAA compliant, regardless

of the electronic requirement or not. In any case, for example, when

you mail in your claims and get paid in 6 months and I mail in my claims

and get paid in 2 weeks, it's going to make you want to be HIPAA

compliant (by submitting your claims electronically). It's really not

that bad, you can take a 4 hour seminar, then bang away at the keyboard

to make up your NPP (notice of privacy practices) and the patient

receipt acknowledgement, and you're 90% there. You can probably find

relevant docs online (required by HIPAA if you have a website) as a

'sample' for the state you're in. For Washington state practitioners,

you can check out:

 

http://www.phyins.com/pi/risk/hipaa.html

 

They have all the forms you need (and way more). The basic requirements

are pretty straightforward and probably will be enough for 99% of us 99%

of the time. If you ever have a situation where a patient starts

fighting you not to release their records, that's when it gets

complicated... and I doubt most of us would get into that situation

anyways.

 

Geoff

 

> __________

>

> Message: 7

> Fri, 30 May 2003 15:45:21 -0700

> " Emmanuel Segmen " <susegmen

> Re: [Chinese Medicine] HIPPA

>

> Hi Jack,

>

> Thank you for the excellent site. As a former member in good

> standing of the AMA, I've learned to read these fabulous flow

> charts. The binary-ness of it all!

>

> By virtue of your excellent work, Jack, it's clear that you

> can still do 3rd party payments by mail without registering

> for HIPAA. In fact the only way you can ever need or be able

> to apply for HIPAA as a practitioner is if you choose to

> install that marvelous encrypted software onto your computer.

> I sense that there is not a single private practice LAc on

> this list who will use a dedicated encrypted software

> computer. On the other hand people like Ta-Ya Lee will

> definitely use such a computer at Johns Hopkins.

>

> Thanks for bringing the AMA to the rescue!

>

> Emmanuel Segmen

> Merritt College, Asia Natural