The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires health plans and covered health care providers develop and distribute a notice that provides a clear, user friendly explanation of individuals rights with respect to their personal health information and the privacy practices of health plans and health care providers.
This notice is commonly referred to as the HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices. Clients should ensure that this document is easily found on their public website. Most customers will include this item where they make Patient Forms available. In addition, this document can be placed on the websites Privacy page.
If you do not have a Notice of Privacy Practices document, you can use the this resource as a guide to create one.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published its final rule implementing the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or what is known as HITECH Act.
So what does this mean for you?
Revision & Redistribution of Your Notice of Privacy Practices
HHS has required material changes to the Notice of Privacy Practices which means that you, as a covered entity, will need to update your Notice of Privacy Practices.
Because HHS deemed some of the changes in the Final Rule to be material changes to the original Privacy Rule provisions addressing Notices of Privacy Practices, covered entities must revise and distribute their updated Notice.
Providers must post the revised notices on their websites and provide hard copies to patients at their next visit. Be sure to log into your content management system or contact our updates team to update your Notice of Privacy.
