By Jack Anderson
February 13, 2014
We have been working on HIPAA compliance with health insurance general agents and producers since 2010, but only the early adopters. The vast majority are sitting back waiting for the star in the east to guide them, which in this story is the carriers. Things roll downhill in the HIPAA world and the top of the hill in the health insurance industry is the carriers. There are hundreds of general agents out ther and each of them has hundreds of producers. The general view is that there are around 500,000 producers. These are very small companies with little training or experience in HIPAA, yet they are handling PII and PHI every day.
Publication of the HIPAA Omnibus rule in March of 2013 and the final deadline of September 23, 2013 for compliance has sparked awareness and concern in the health insurance industry. It is widely accepted that the majority of general agents and the vast majority of producers are non-compliant. Most carriers have amended their business associate agreements strengthening the HIPAA compliance requirements and a few have begun educating the GAs and producers.
What is required next is for the carriers to identify solutions that they can provide or recommend solutions that will help them meet the requirements. Compliance Helper has develooed the tools that the industry needs.
BA Helper is a free program for carriers that provides educational webinars, compliance surveys, and remdiation advice. Prepare/Care is a comprehensive program to help general agents get compliant and Care Micro is designed especially for small producers. Visit our site to see video for mediums size BAs and CEs and for small BAs.
Contact Jack Anderson, jack@compliancehelper for a demonstration of BA Helper.