Blog: Will HIPAA changes torpedo health IT stimulus?

Will HIPAA changes torpedo health IT stimulus?

Posted by Dana Blankenhorn; March 19th, 2009 @ 9:51 am

The industry charged with scaring physicians about HIPAA requirements (and avoiding automation like a plague) has gone into overdrive over changes to the law created by the Obama stimulus.

The stimulus, by the way, is now called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The part dealing with health IT is called Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH — get it?).

In brief, the new act extends the definition of “covered entities” to include all those a physician’s practice does business with — lawyers, accountants, suppliers, etc.

So if you’re handing your lawyer patient records (as in a malpractice suit) that exchange of data is now covered under HIPAA. They can’t spread it around as part of your defense.

HITECH also tells all “covered entities” they have to notify authorities if data is lost. Previously only Arkansas and California had this requirement — apparently everywhere else doctors were dropping laptops with patient data into trash cans and keeping it a secret.