Conference on New HIPAA Audit and Enforcement Activities: Being Prepared to Show your Compliance

Overview: In this session we will discuss the HIPAA audit and enforcement programs and how they work, and discuss the areas that caused the most issues in prior audits. We will explore what kind of issues and what kind of entities had the most problems, and show where entities need to improve their compliance the most. We will also explore the typical risk issues that lead to breaches of health information and see how those issues may be a target for auditors in the 2014-2015 round.

• We will review the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol used in 2012 to show what documentation needs to be on hand should your organization be selected for an audit in the new round. We will present methods for using the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol to build your own compliance plan by extracting and updating the contents and relating your compliance activities directly to the questions that might be asked.
• In this session we will discuss the HIPAA audit and enforcement regulations and processes, and how they apply to HIPAA covered entities and business associates. We will explain the enforcement regulations and the recent changes that increase fines and create new penalty levels, including new penalties for willful neglect of compliance that begin at $10,000.
• We will discuss what information and documentation must be prepared in advance so that you can be ready for an audit at any time, including sample information request forms and questions asked at prior audits. The session will also cover how to know if you may become the subject of an audit or enforcement action, and what you can do to help limit your exposure. We will discuss how most enforcement actions come about and what can be done to prevent incidents that lead to enforcement activity.
• The HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification regulations (and the recent changes to them) and how they will be audited will be explained. Documentation requirements for compliance will be explored and a framework of security policies necessary for compliance will be presented. The HIPAA Audit Protocol questions will be explored and ways of using the content to develop a compliance plan will be discussed. The process of exporting the questions will be shown, and a sample spreadsheet showing the results will be presented.
• The results of prior HHS audits and enforcement actions (and their penalties) will be discussed, including recent actions involving multi-million dollar fines and settlements. A plan for attaining compliance will be presented. The steps to follow to prepare for an audit and respond to an audit request will be outlined.

Why should you attend: HIPAA Compliance requires that you be prepared to handle Protected Health Information properly and follow the requirements in the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules. If there is a problem that comes to the surface, an enforcement action can result, including financial settlements that can reach into the millions of dollars, and Corrective Action Plans that can take years to complete and can cost many times the expense of the monetary settlements. 

HIPAA enforcement and audits are now a significant reality, and settlements for violations are being announced more and more frequently. Now, with the increases in breach reporting and the new random audit program under way, enforcement of HIPAA is something that every HIPAA entity and business associate needs to be aware of and prepared for, by taking the proper steps in advance to have your compliance in order and the documentation to prove it.

Knowing what questions are likely to be asked and what documentation is necessary to show compliance are key to preparations for HIPAA compliance inquiries, and this session will explore a number of sets of questions and the issues they revealed, leading to enforcement action.

Every entity under the HIPAA regulations needs to know why the enforcement actions took place and what could have been done differently to prevent the violations that led to enforcement, so they can avoid those issues and their significant impact. Failure to do so can lead to financial settlements, fines, and/or corrective action plans that can severely impact your organization. 

Areas Covered in the Session:

• Find out what you'll need to have documented to survive an audit or compliance review and avoid fines
• 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 what policies and procedures you should have in place
• Learn about the training and education that must take place and be documented to ensure your staff uses health information 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 how you must be prepared or risk significant penalties

Who Will Benefit:

• Compliance Director
• CEO
• CFO
• Privacy Officer
• Security Officer
• Information Systems Manager
• HIPAA Officer
• Chief Information Officer
• Health Information Manager
• Healthcare Counsel/lawyer
• Office Manager

Speaker :

Jim Sheldon-Dean is the founder and director of compliance services at Lewis Creek Systems, LLC, a Vermont-based consulting firm founded in 1982, providing information privacy and security regulatory compliance services to a wide variety of health care entities. 

Sheldon-Dean serves on the HIMSS Information Systems Security Workgroup, has co-chaired the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange Privacy and Security Workgroup, and is a recipient of the WEDI 2011 Award of Merit. He is a frequent speaker regarding HIPAA and information privacy and security compliance issues at seminars and conferences, including speaking engagements at numerous regional and national healthcare association conferences and conventions and the annual NIST/OCR HIPAA Security Conference in Washington, D.C. 

Sheldon-Dean has more than 30 years of experience in policy analysis and implementation, business process analysis, information systems and software development. His experience includes leading the development of health care related Web sites; award-winning, best-selling commercial utility software; and mission-critical, fault-tolerant communications satellite control systems. In addition, he has eight years of experience doing hands-on medical work as a Vermont certified volunteer emergency medical technician. Sheldon-Dean received his B.S. degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Vermont and his master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Price : $139.00 

Contact Info:

MentorHealth

Phone No: 1-800-385-1607

FaX: 302-288-6884 

support@mentorhealth.com

Event Link: http://bit.ly/1O48dhU

http://www.mentorhealth.com/