Question

5. List the top five compliance issues that have been investigated by the federal government since HIPAA went into effect. A B

Answer 1

Ans) The top five most-investigated compliance issues:

1) Impermissible uses and disclosures of protected health information.

2) Lack of safeguards of protected health information.

3) Lack of administrative safeguards of electronic protected health information.

4) Lack of administrative safeguards of electronic protected health information.

5) Use or disclosure of more than the minimum necessary protected health information.

- As most of these five issues have the potential to cause a breach, but what happens after a breach occurs also presents a very real HIPAA compliance threat.

- According to this HHS document, “A covered entity must mitigate, to the extent practicable, any harmful effect it learns was caused by use or disclosure of protected health information by its workforce or its business associates in violation of its privacy policies and procedures or the Privacy Rule.”

- Mitigating a breach is mandatory—and an important part of the first step in your HIPAA breach survival guide—but over the past few years, OCR records indicate a troubling increase in healthcare providers’ lack of mitigation.