By Jack Anderson
January 14, 2014
HIPAA Compliance for Health Insurance Brokers/Producers
Health insurance carriers and general agents are struggling with their own HIPAA compliance but their greater concern is the legions of brokers/producers (hereinafter referred to as producers) who are gathering, storing, sending, and receiving protected health information (PHI) on a daily basis.
Under the HIPAA Omnibus Rule which became effective September 23, 2013 carriers became defined as covered entities with increased responsibilities for their business associates which include general agents as well as producers. General agents in turn assumed greater responsibility for managing their producers including but not limited to getting them to sign new more stringent business associate agreements.
What does a producer have to do?
•Get Expert Advice
•Appoint a Privacy and Security Officer
•Establish Written Policies and Procedures
•Do a Risk Assessment
•Setup an On-Going Risk Management Program
•Document your HIPAA compliance activities
This may sound like an impossible task but there are tools to help you achieve these goals.
Use an on-line tool for accessing a privacy and security expert.
The Privacy and Security Officer can be anyone who is willing to take responsibility for HIPAA compliance. In a one person company the choice is obvious, you.
Templates of policies and procedures are available that meet the HIPAA standards.
Guides for a self-administered risk assessment are available.
Tools for managing the on-going risk management program are easy to use.
Software tools that document your activities are well proven.
What about the cost?
By delivering all of this through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model the costs are greatly reduced and the process is very efficient.
Compliance Helper has developed the Care Micro service which provides all of the above for a $99 setup fee and $35 per month maintenance fee.