Yesterday the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR), the agency responsible for enforcing the HIPAA regulations, released model notices of privacy practices. Eight versions were released, 4 for health providers and 4 for insurers. These are colorful designs with attractive and easy-to-read layouts. Because the HIPAA Omnibus rule changed the specifications for the Notice, all covered entities are required to update their notices by the upcoming September 23, 2013 deadline. So, these new notices arrive at a timely moment.
Health providers usually agree that most patients ignore their unreadable notice and quickly discard it, often in the waiting room. However, the federal government has a much different opinion of its value. In previous enforcement actions, inaccurate notices have been counted as a violation for every distribution to a patient. For example, a group practice with 60,000 patients was found guilty of 60,000 violations – one for each time they gave the improper notice to a patient. So, from a compliance standpoint, the notice should be accurate!
Booklet Version of Notice of Privacy Practices
Of the 4 different formats, OCR said that consumers preferred the booklet form, in color as opposed to black and white. The PDF templates provided can be easily customized by the healthcare organization. The 8-page booklet is created by printing 2 pages, both sides, stapling in the middle and folding to create a 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ full color booklet. With some setting adjustments, Adobe Acrobat Reader and a color printer with duplex printing capabilities handled this task easily. Offices lucky enough to have printers capable stapling in the center will have no problem. Otherwise, a special long stapler is necessary for the manual stapling. Most organizations will need to do the folding manually.
Recognizing that most healthcare organizations lack printers with color, duplexing, stapling and folding capabilities, it is doubtful that these color booklets will be distributed to every patient. OCR suggests the possibility of making a small quantity of these booklets for use in the waiting room. The other PDF formats are 5 pages long, so with duplex printing these require 3 pieces of paper. One of these other formats could be used for the mandatory distribution to each new patient.
A benefit of the OCR templates is avoiding the cost of consultants or attorneys who might otherwise be required to update HIPAA materials. However, this is one of many changes necessary by September 23 so most organizations will need outside help.
OCR has done a nice job and I’m sure that if health organizations used these new notices that more patients would read them. The big question is, will any health provider (or insurer) bother to invest resources for this?
