HIPAA Audits and Enforcement for 2020 and Beyond - Current Issues and Focus for HIPAA Compliance in the Coming Year

Why Should You Attend:

This webinar will examine the updated 2019 HIPAA Audit Protocol as well as other questionnaires that have been used in the past and may be used to help prepare an organization for a future review. We will present methods for using the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol to build your own compliance plan by extracting the contents and relating your compliance activities and documentation directly to the questions that might be asked, thereby creating a compliance management tool to ensure continued compliance improvement.

We will review the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol used in 2019 to show what documentation needs to be on hand should your organization be selected for an audit or enforcement action. We will explain the enforcement regulations and the recent changes that increase fines and create new penalty levels, including new penalties for willful neglect of compliance that begin at $10,000. Documentation requirements for compliance will be explored and a framework of security policies necessary for compliance will be presented.

The results of prior HHS audits (and their penalties) will be discussed, including recent actions involving multi-million dollar fines and settlements. A plan for attaining compliance will be presented. The steps to follow to prepare for an audit and respond to an audit request will be outlined. In addition, upcoming trends in information security risks will be discussed so you can start to plan for the work you'll need to do to stay in compliance and keep patient information private and secure.

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• The HIPAA Random Audit program is being refocused and redefined to make it more relevant to finding and correcting some of the most prevalent security and privacy compliance issues, based on the experience gained in the 2012 and 2016 audits and in the HIPAA Breach Notification process
• HIPAA Audits have been few and far between in the past, but that's now changing - the HHS is now auditing HIPAA covered entities and business associates even if there have been no complaints or problems reported
• Fines and penalties for violations of the HIPAA regulations have been significantly increased and now include mandatory fines for willful neglect of the rules that begin at $10,000 minimum and can reach $50,000 per day
• The HIPAA Audit Protocol will be examined along with the sets of questions asked at other HIPAA audits previously
• Find out what HHS OCR is likely to ask you if you are selected for an audit, and what you'll have to have prepared already when they do
• Find out what the rules are that you need to comply with and what policies you can adopt that can help you come into compliance
• Learn how the HIPAA rules have changed and how you may need to change how you work to keep up with them
• Learn how having a good compliance process can help you stay compliant more easily
• Find out what you'll need to have documented to survive an audit and avoid fines
• Learn how to export the contents of the HIPAA Audit Protocol and use them as the foundation of your compliance activities and documentation

Who Will Benefit:

This webinar will provide valuable assistance to all personnel in:
Medical offices, practice groups, hospitals, academic medical centers, insurers, business associates (shredding, data storage, systems vendors, billing services, etc.). The titles are:

• Compliance director
• CEO
• CFO
• Privacy Officer
• Security Officer
• Information Systems Manager
• HIPAA Officer
• Chief Information Officer
• Health Information Manager
• Healthcare Counsel/lawyer
• Office Manager
• Contracts Manager