Patient Records

One of the more common causes of Government Investigations into possible HIPAA violations are patient complaints.

When we discuss HIPAA most of the articles have been on security and breaches, but HIPAA goes well beyond privacy and Security.  One aspect of the HIPAA rule is the “Right of Access”.   OCR (The Office for Civil Rights – the branch of HHS the enforces HIPAA) is enforcing this law even more strongly since the 21 Century Cures Act was published.  OCR has begun to levy fines against organizations that are in violation of the “Right of Access” rule.

Under the new law known as the 21st Century Cures Act, information blocking is now ILLEGAL. That means if you get a request from another provider for patient information, you are required to provide that information. The Office of Inspector General at OIG can investigate all claims of information blocking by providers and can levy fines and / or enforce Corrective Action Plans (CAP).