How Law Firms Can Tame the HIPAA Omnibus HIPPO by Carolyn Casey

I've been traveling to the large legal markets the last few months to host interactive discussions on law firm information governance. A popular topic has been what do firms need to do to comply with privacy regulations like the HIPAA Omnibus Rule? This year-old regulation ushered in HIPPO-sized liability for firms as business associates of covered entities. Many firms are still building out their protocols for compliance to avoid hefty fines, prevent harm to their brand from breaches and successfully grow their healthcare, insurance and litigation practices. If you are looking for a way to navigate this beast, check out the HIPAA Omnibus Task Force Report, published by the Law Firm Information Governance Symposium this summer.

As your firm charts its course for HIPAA compliance, here are few key ideas to keep in mind:

1. The Privacy Rule's new minimum necessary standard has one of the biggest impacts for firms. In a nutshell, the rule says law firms need to button down access to PHI, granting access to this private information only to those lawyers and employees who need the information to do their job. The good news is, most firms aren't starting from scratch, and therefore can leverage your existing ethical wall/conflicts and other sensitive information access policies and controls they already have in place. However, you will need to identify PHI in the firm and make sure there are guardrails up to meet this new HIPAA Omnibus standard.

2. The Security Rule requires safeguards to protect electronic PHI (ePHI). HHS guidance for this rule includes details on how to assess your risks, even for items such as digital copiers and file sharing applications. Firms that handle PHI are going to want to do some kind of security risk assessment and train your people on PHI security policies and procedures. Law firms can take a look at the Symposium Task Force Report to determine what you need to do to comply. You'll also want to be sure your service providers operate in accordance with these HIPAA requirements, especially if you store in the cloud or you or your clients use providers for scanning medical records.

3. Breach Notification. Law firms are directly liable for reporting breaches of unsecured protected health information to their covered entity, which in turn must report the breach to HHS, the affected individual, and in some instances, even the media. Needless to say, firms want to avoid the breach notification scenario. The potential for harm to the firm's brand, client cases and pocketbook is as big as a hippo. The Omnibus Rule includes a new presumption that an impermissible use or disclosure is a breach, unless the firm can prove otherwise. Another point to keep in mind is that HIPAA only requires notification of breaches of unsecured PHI - meaning PHI that has not been rendered unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized persons. To meet this standard, HHS guidelines specify things like encrypting PHI, and clearing, purging or destroying electronic media in accordance with NIST standards. For paper and film, HHS looks at whether the media was shredded so that the PHI is unreadable and cannot be reconstructed. Firms will want to ensure that their own and their vendor methodologies meet these standards.

Don't let the HIPAA HIPPO overwhelm your firm - take advantage of the roadmap for compliance in the Symposium HIPAA Task Force Report today.

Founded by Iron Mountain, the Law Firm Information Governance Symposium is a community of industry thought leaders that provides common approaches and best practices for building law firm information governance enabling law firms and their clients to leverage common elements for governing and managing client information.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2014/industry/law-firms/law-firms-tame-h...
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