STEPS PROVIDERS SHOULD
TAKE TO PREPARE FOR HIPAA
Read the final rules: Your organization must know and understand the rules in order to implement them timely and effectively. The final rule for transactions and code sets can be viewed from the following website: http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/admnsimp/final/txtfinal.pdf
Awareness: Every employee affected in your organization should have a general knowledge of HIPAA and how their job duties could be impacted.
HIPAA Assigned responsibilities: It would be wise to create a HIPAA team and define the roles of each member. The team should include someone from your legal department along with other pertinent personnel who should all be dedicated specifically to work on HIPAA.
Assessment: HIPAA may affect the way you conduct business currently and in the future. You must determine the impacts associated with your system.
Plan compliance strategies for both inbound and outbound transactions: Decide how your organization will comply with the HIPAA regulations both for sending claims and receiving data from health care entities. Check with your technical programming staff and your system vendor to see what their plans are regarding HIPAA and determine when and if they will become HIPAA compliant.
Design and Implementation: Determine what system changes and/or process changes your organization needs for HIPAA compliance. Your organization also needs to decide how you will implement these changes. From here, implementation, transition and conversion plans should be developed. Networking with other providers, payers and associations could also prove to be beneficial.
Budgeting: HIPAA implementation should not be compared to the Year 2000 (Y2K) project because it is a much larger project in terms of resources and time. This will affect budgeting. Your organization should identify the cost and adequate resources to become HIPAA compliant.
Additional HIPAA information can be found at the following website:
www.cms.hhs.gov/hipaa/hipaa2/npi-provider.pdf