Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979
Psychologist, Social Worker, Counselor, & MFT!!

Section 1
Track #1 - Streamlining HIPAA Compliance

Question 1 found at the bottom of this page
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Welcome to the Home Study Course sponsored by the Healthcare Training Institute, homestudycredit.com.  This course is entitled, HIPAA:  Ethically Setting Client Boundaries

Our primary intent for this home study course is to provide quality education to foster your professional growth.  The Institute has provided quality education since 1979.
 
We appreciate that you have chosen us as a vehicle for you to earn your Continuing Education Credit.

The purpose of the course is to assist you in increasing your knowledge regarding client boundaries as defined by HIPAA.  As each case study is given, if the concepts seem to be applicable to your situation, I encourage you to turn your CD player off and make a few notes regarding the application of the principle to your setting.  However, these notes are for your purposes only and are not to be sent to the Institute.  Also each track is very content dense.  So feel free to replay the track to review the content either for your own purposes, or if you feel appropriate play the track in an individual or group session for client education.  Also permission is granted to reproduce this CD.  We encourage you to duplicate and give copies of this CD to colleagues, clients, etc. as you deem appropriate. We feel the information on our CD's is valuable.  Thus, we have an interest in distributing CD's in as many ways as possible, to benefit the greatest number of people, who have a need and are receptive to this practical information.

The questions in your Answer Booklet are sequential and deal with the section of content that preceded it.  For this reason, to facilitate the answering of each question, you might read the question from the Answer Booklet prior to listening to that CD track.  By knowing what the question is ahead of time, you will then know the content to listen for that contains the answer.  So just a hint, after you write down the answer to a question in your Answer Booklet, read on to the next question in order to give you a “heads up” to listen for the content that contains the answer to the next question.

Merely write the correct letter on the corresponding blank line in your answer booklet. Each answer is only used once. Keep in mind there is nothing tricky or hard about these questions.  They are merely intended to verify the playing of this CD.

For the purpose of brevity, most generally, I will use the term “therapists” or “mental health professional.”  However, don’t let these terms deter you from applying the concepts to your situations.  When you hear the word “therapists,” if your job title is social worker, psychologist, marriage and family therapist, mental health counselor, professional counselor, resident director, program assistant, etc. merely substitute the appropriate term that is the most meaningful to you. In short, don’t let my use of the term “therapists” cognitively set you off track from hearing the content because your job title is school counselor, for example.  I will also use the term “client” for the purposes of brevity.  However, if you deal with patients, residents, students, consumers, etc., transpose “client” for the term that is the most meaningful to you in your work setting. 

On this CD set we will discuss such topics as: streamlining HIPAA compliance; a review of HIPAA and note disclosure; informed consent; treatment of minors; the internet controversy; delusions of privacy; and disclosure of test data.

So  let’s get started

As you are aware, HIPAA was created to set ethical boundaries or limits regarding client confidentiality.  In 1996, it was approved by Congress to create standardized formatting of health care records across providers, institutions, localities, and states. Congress included HIPAA Privacy Standards to limit the use and release of health information, give patients greater access to and control of their records, and establish legal accountability and penalties for unauthorized use and disclosure of individually identifiable health information.

On the rest of this track, we will present a basic three-point HIPAA compliance checklist so that you will assess your compliance with HIPAA regulations and avoid crossing any ethical boundaries.  These three points of a  HIPAA compliance checklist include:  Notice of Privacy Practices; Business Associates Agreement; and Correspondence Confidentiality Statements.  As you are aware, HIPAA is continually undergong scrutiny and revisioins.  Some states have added additional conditions beyond the federal standard.  This course is based on federal requirements that were accurate at the time of publication of this course.  If some information appears to conflict with your State or more current requirements, of course that would take precedent.

#1 Notice of Privacy Practices
The first point on a HIPAA compliance checklist is a Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP).  Also known as NPP’s, these forms inform clients of their rights as HIPAA-protected clients.  For this form, you can download a copy from the internet.  According to HIPAA regulations, these forms must be written in “plain language.”  However, this is not always the case, and many clients do not completely comprehend their rights.  We will discuss this issue of readability on a later track.  The other problem with most samples is that they include a great deal of information that is not applicable to the typical small psychiatric practice.  This information can include such statements as informing clients that their documentation might be used for marketing, fundraising, research, client directories, etc.  After providing a client with your NPP, it is necessary that they in turn provide you with an Acknowledgement that states the client received your privacy notice.  This can be a simple one-page statement, stating, “I acknowledge that I have received and read Dr. X’s Privacy Notice.”  Does your Privacy Notice need to be reevaluated?

#2 Business Associates Agreement
The second point on a HIPAA compliance checklist is a Business Associates Agreement.  If you contract with an outside company or individual to help you with your practice in such a way that they must see some client information (for example, someone who does your billing), you both have to sign an official Business Associates Agreement. This states that your billing company, or transcriptionist, agrees to keep client information confidential.  Staff employees, like your secretary or other office staff, do not have to sign this form, but you should document that you have given formal training in privacy practices.  That way, your clients feel more comfortable sharing private information with your employees and this in turn will save you a great deal of time. 

#3Correspondence Confidentiality Statements
In addition to Notice of Privacy Practices and a Business Associates Agreement, the third point on a HIPAA compliance checklist is Correspondence Confidentiality Statements.  This is a statement you place on every correspondence including faxes, emails, and letters that state that information in this document is confidential.  Generally, I try to make the word “confidential” as big as possible, writing in  all capital letters and sometimes bolding it. 

On this track, we discussed a basic three-point HIPAA compliance checklist so that you may be in full compliance with HIPAA regulations and avoid crossing any ethical boundaries.  These three points of a  HIPAA compliance checklist included:  Notice of Privacy Practices; Business Associates Agreement; and Correspondence Confidentiality Statements.

On the next track, we will review the ways in which HIPAA guidelines affect note taking during a client sessions.  Ethical boundaries created by HIPAA regarding note-taking include the following three areas  categorization of notes; instances of exemption; and exclusions.

QUESTION 1
What are three points on a HIPAA compliance checklist to consider to make sure that you are in full compliance? To select and enter your answer go to Answer Booklet