Overview:
This webinar focuses on HIPAA Rules for transmitting informational email and text messages to patients over an electronic communications network.
You will learn:
- The information that makes a message subject to HIPAA
- The "safe harbor" - How Health Care Providers may obtain consent
from patients to send PHI in unencrypted email and unencrypted text
messages and not be responsible for unauthorized access to the PHI in
transmission or when received by the patient
- What a Health Care Provider must do if a patient does not agree to receive PHI in unencrypted email or unencrypted text message
- The requirements for a Business Associate to be able to communicate
by email or text message with a patient on behalf of a Health Care
Provider
- How a Business Associate may protect itself from liability for
violating HIPAA Rules about email and text messages in its Business
Associate Agreement
- What a Health Care Provider must do if a patient does not agree to receive PHI in unencrypted emails or text messages
- How Health Care Providers and Business Associates may prove they are compliant with the HIPAA Rules through documentation
- The Policies and Procedures Health Care Providers and Business
Associates must have in place to comply with HIPAA Rules concerning
communication with patients through email and text message
Why you should Attend:
There are widespread violations of the HIPAA Rules for communicating
with patients by unencrypted email and text message - largely because
Providers and Business Associates just don't know the rules. These HIPAA
Rules are clear and easy to follow but you are at great risk and
directly liable for breaking them.
A simple appointment reminder is, by definition, PHI even though it may
not contain diagnostic specific information. So are Happy Birthday
wishes, reminders that a patient is overdue for a checkup or has an
outstanding balance on a bill.
You must know how you can maximize your use of key patient communication
tools while protecting yourself and your organization from government
penalties and patient lawsuits.
Health Care Providers have a mandatory "duty to warn" patients of risks
associated with unencrypted email. A patient may refuse to receive
unencrypted emails after being warned. Health Care Providers and
Business Associates must strictly follow the patient's restriction.
There is a HIPAA "safe harbor" that frees you from:
- Responsibility for unauthorized access of a patient's PHI during transmission and
- Responsibility for safeguarding PHI delivered to the patient
Don't be the Provider or Business Associate that finds itself in serious
trouble simply because you didn’t follow the HIPAA Rules for
unencrypted electronic communication with patients!
Areas Covered in the Session:
- More and more patients like the convenience of email and text message
- The HIPAA "safe harbor" - how you can communicate with patients in the way they prefer and protect your organization
- How Health Care Providers and Business Associates can work together
to avoid violating HIPAA Rules about email and text message
communications with patients
Who Will Benefit:
- Health Care Providers
- Dentists
- Optometrists
- Physicians
- Podiatrists
- Chiropractors
- Hospitals
- Business Associates
- Billing
- Collection
- Insurance Brokerage
- Patient Engagement and Marketing Companies