Overview:
Professional communications involving Protected Health Information must be conducted securely, according to guidance from HHS and any reasonable Risk Analysis required by the Security Rule, so any office communications must be carefully controlled to avoid breaches of PHI.
But it's not only the office staff and physicians who need to
communicate, communications with patients is a key part of patient care
today.
As HIPAA requirements for allowing patients electronic
access to their health information are now in effect, and as patients
increasingly come to depend on electronic communications, there are new
demands for communication via e-mail and texting, using personal
devices.
Patients don't want to bother with secure
Web-site-based solutions, they just want to use the tools they already
use for communication, and they have a right to communicate how they
wish. How can HIPAA requirements for privacy and security be reconciled
with patient requests for information provided by e-mail and text
messages? This session will discuss the differences between
professional communications and patient communications, and how they
must be treated to best serve patients, most efficiently enable
communications, and remain within the bounds of HIPAA compliance.
This
session will discuss the rights of individuals under HIPAA to
communicate in the manner they desire, and how to decide what is an
acceptable process for communications with individuals. The session
will explain how to discuss communications options with individuals so
that you can best meet their needs and desires, while preserving their
rights under the rules. The new 2016 guidance on individual access of
information will be discussed in detail.
Texting is often the
preferred, or sometimes the only way of communicating with patients.
Doctors and medical offices are finding that texting is far more
flexible, convenient, and effective than paging, and patients want to be
able to use short message texting for handling of appointments,
updates, and the like, where even e-mail or the telephone would seem
inconvenient.
Communicating with patients' cell phones via
texting or voice call for purposes of payment or providing healthcare
information requires consent, and using texting for official purposes
still remains out-of-bounds for physician orders. These issues must be
considered when evaluating the use of texting and e-mail for all kinds
of communications.
In order to integrate the use of e-mail,
texting, and personal devices into patient and professional
communications, it is essential to perform the proper steps in an
information security compliance process to evaluate and address the
risks of using the technology.
This session will describe the
information security compliance process, how it works, and how it can
help you decide how to integrate e-mail, texting, and personal devices
into your organization in a compliant way. There has long been a HIPAA
requirement for covered entities to do their best to meet the requests
of their patients for particular modes of communication, and using
e-mail or texting is no exception.
Why you should Attend:
With the advent of these technologies- texting, e-mailing, and
personal devices - and increased desires to use e-mail, texting, and
other Apps, and with increases in audits and enforcement actions
following breaches, now is the time to ensure your organization meets
the requirements of the regulations and meets the e-mail and texting
communication needs and desires of its providers, staff, and patients.
You
need the proper privacy protections for health information, including
documented policies and procedures on which your staff has been trained,
as well as documentation of any actions taken pursuant to those
policies and procedures.
The stakes are high - any improper
exposure of PHI against the rules may result in a breach that must be
reported to the individual and to the US Department of Health and Human
Services, at great cost and with the potential to bring fines and other
enforcement actions if a violation of rules is involved. Likewise,
complaints by a patient if they are not afforded the access they desire
can bring about HHS inquiries and enforcement actions, so it is
essential to find the right balance of access and control.
In
addition to HIPAA, there are impacts of the Telecommunications
Protection Act (TCPA) that limit the use of cell phones for payment and
healthcare purposes unless consent is obtained, and there have been
actions by the Joint Commission to approve and then withdraw approval of
using secure texting for physician orders.
The session will
discuss the requirements, the risks, and the issues of the increasing
use of e-mail, texting, and personal devices for patient and provider
communications and provide a road map for how to use them safely and
effectively, to increase the quality of health care and patient
satisfaction.
Areas Covered in the Session:
- Find out the ways that patients want to use their e-mail and
texting to communicate with providers, and the ways providers want to
use e-mail, texting, and personal devices to enable better patient care
- Learn what are the risks of using e-mail, texting, and personal devices, what can go wrong, and what can result when it does
- Find out about HIPAA requirements for access and patient preferences, as well as the requirements to protect PHI
- Learn
how to use an information security management process to evaluate risks
and make decisions about how best to protect PHI and meet patient needs
and desires
- Find out about limitations on the use of messages and calls to cell phones under TCPA
- Discover how the Joint Commission decided to allow and then withdraw allowing the use of texting for physician orders
- Find
out what policies and procedures you should have in place for dealing
with e-mail, texting, and personal devices, as well as any new
technology
- Learn about the training and education that must take
place to ensure your staff use e-mail, texting, and personal devices
properly and does not risk exposure of PHI
- Find out the steps that must be followed in the event of a breach of PHI
- Learn
about how the HIPAA audit and enforcement activities are now being
increased and what you need to do to survive a HIPAA audit
- There
is inadequate coverage under HIPAA for new technologies and new kinds
of patient information technologies, such as contact tracing Apps
Who Will Benefit:
- CEO
- HIPAA Privacy Officers
- HIPAA Security Officers
- Information Security Officers
- Risk Managers
- Compliance Officers
- Privacy Officers
- Health Information Managers
- Information Technology Managers
- Information Systems Managers
- Medical Office Managers
- Chief Financial Officers
- Systems Managers
- Chief Information Officer
- Healthcare Counsel/lawyer
- Operations Directors