It's not surprising that in the week following the HIPAA deadline the mail was focused on HIPAA.  Ray Posa will address those questions in this week's featured "HIPAA Q & A".

Last weekend the podiatry community in Washington State gathered in Ocean Shores, on the Pacific coast, for the annual meeting.  It was a good meeting with informative and enjoyable speakers, and plenty of ideas and information exchanged.  In a departure from the usual Awards Banquet mode, a theatrical "Murder Mystery" dinner event was held.  As the "detectives" named names and spun their scenarios, most of the attendees had a good laugh, while the "suspects" pondered how those gentlemen got their information.

I believe a good time was had by all, and if your association is looking for a new approach to entertaining seminar registrants, this would be worth investigating.  For a look at some photos from the Washington event, visit the FootZine Picture Pages (the Murder Mystery pages link from the  bottom of the main Picture Page):  http://www.footzine.com/FZ_8.htm

  ~ Gayle

The First Questions:

A few HIPAA questions:  

(1) For a patient's disability claim, can you fax the information?  I feel no is the correct answer, so I mailed the information to them marked confidential.

(2) In a workman's comp case, the Attorney calls asking for information? I told him to contact the patient.

(3) I am not trained about HIPAA although I should and want to be. Is there a seminar in the Chicago area coming up for those of us who would like to know more?

Thanks for the help,
Brenda

The Answers:

(1) Faxing information is permissible as long as you have proper faxing protocols in place.  For proper faxing you should sent over a test Fax to the number (when it is a new fax number to you) and then call over and make sure it arrived.  You don't want to have a number transposed and send it to a wrong number, so we like to verify that we have a valid number. Secondly, you want a good Fax cover sheet that states that "The following is confidential patient information and (that) if you are not the intended recipients, please destroy the fax and call our office immediately and notify us that the fax was sent to a wrong number". Other than that, faxing is fine.

(2) Regarding the workman's comp case, the Attorney in unknown to you so you have no idea who this is requesting patient information.  The best way to handle this is to send a patient "Request for release of patient information" to the attorney and have them get the signature of the patient and send it back to you, and keep it in the patient's chart. This type of release of information is permissible under HIPAA as long as the patient requests the release. If the request is a "time of the essence" matter, then I would call the patient and get a verbal acknowledgement for the release, and write the time and date of the request and put it in the patient's chart and then follow up with the written request form and keep that in the chart also.

(3) As for the final question, by HIPAA regulation if you are working in a doctor's office or in an environment where you are handling PHI, then you must be trained on the office's privacy policies and HIPAA.  As for training in the Chicago area, I don't know who is offering training but I would think all you have to do is wait a week or two and you will probably get some solicitation in the mail about upcoming training. There are many companies offering training. You can also go to the Web and do a search on "HIPAA training in Chicago". You will probably get some hits.

The Next Questions:

(1) Please, tell me the right way of calling a patient into the examining room.

(2) I am also letting my patients sign in when they arrive.  Is this correct?  Some people say no, others say yes.

Haydee

The Next Answers:

(1) First, you may call a patient from the waiting room by their name.  You are not giving away any PHI by uttering their name.  The only situations where calling a person by name might infer a breach of a patient's privacy would be in the case of an AIDS clinic, substance abuse center, or situations like that where just being there for treatment will infer some negative images.

(2) The second is similar to the first; just having a sign-in sheet with a date and time will not divulge any PHI, unless you are in one of the highly sensitive area as mentioned above.


By: Raymond F. Posa, MBA
Technology Advisor to the American Academy of Podiatric Practice Management
President, R. Francis Associates

Any questions or comments can be addressed to Mr. Posa by E-mail: Rposa@Rfrancis.com

These questions and their answers will be archived on the FootZine web site on the "HIPAA FAQ" page, at http://www.footzine.com/FZ_50.htm
Email your HIPAA questions to: gaylepmac@footzine.com

This weekend the American Academy of Podiatric Practice Management (AAPPM) is joined by the Pennsylvania Podiatric Medical Assistants Association in presenting "The Ultimate Staff Meeting" in Philadelphia.  This is only the second time in recent memory that podiatric assistants have attended a meeting of AAPPM, but I expect that it will not be the last.  With that meeting behind us, the FootZine Calendar has only one more entry. 

I'd love to be able to pass along information about your state or regional seminar (as well as your letters, questions, answers and comments), so please, feel free to write!

  ~  Gayle