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The Department of Health and Human Services published in the Sept. 23 Federal Register a proposal for adoption of standards for certain attachments to electronic health care claims under HIPAA. The proposed standard would require doctors, hospitals, and other covered entities to use certain transactions, messaging standards, and a new code set when they electronically request the additional information and provide the information in response to the request related to health plans processing claims.
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Mark McClellan said the federal government will not process incoming non-HIPAA-compliant Medicare claims submitted for payment on and after Oct. 1, 2005. That decision ended a portion of CMS' HIPAA contingency plan that was in effect since October 2003, under which Medicare continued accepting noncompliant claims after the deadline.
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News: A young female patient was burned and suffered nerve damage after trichloroacetic acid was improperly used instead of acetic acid during her colposcopy. She sued for damages and was awarded $500,000 for pain and suffering.
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For any claims arising after an evacuation or disaster involving your organization, the key issue may be whether you prepared as well as you should have and then executed your plan effectively. To determine that, experts say courts may rely on the Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery Checklist: Beyond the Emergency Management Plan" issued in December 2004 by the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA) in Washington, DC.
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Responding to the dilemmas faced by hospitals hit by Hurricane Katrina, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has issued a step-by-step guide called Standing Together: An Emergency Planning Guide for America's Communities."
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In assessing liability for any injury or loss of life during an evacuation, a key question will be whether the organization followed instructions from the local authorities, says Kevin Lyles, JD, an attorney with the law firm Jones Day in Columbus, OH. Lyles co-chairs Jones Day's health care practice and oversees the firm's privacy practice.
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Hurricane Katrina exposed questions of professional liability for facilities and individual providers, either for failing to have a disaster plan in effect or failure to properly implement the plan, says Donna Klein, JD, of the law firm McGlinchey Stafford in New Orleans.
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The Department of Health and Human Services published Sept. 14 an extension to the interim final rule establishing procedures for imposition of civil money penalties on entities that violate HIPAA administrative simplification standards.
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A Computerworld survey of information technology managers and analysts found that five months after HIPAA's data security rules took effect, many health care companies still are not fully compliant with them. Those interviewed said technology, process, and budgetary issues delayed compliance efforts, along with what was seen as a weak enforcement component that has led many health care organizations to believe they could take a wait-and-see attitude toward the rules.
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The sixth in a planned series of seven HIPAA security rule educational papers deals with risk analysis and risk management. The rule's security management process standard has four required implementation specifications, including risk analysis and risk management.
