I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the new HIPAA Omnibus rules ever since I interviewed Rita Bowen at HIMSS about the new HIPAA rules. While Rita highlights some other changes that came as part of HIPAA Omnibus, I still think that the biggest change is all of the new details around business associates.
There are a lot of changes when it comes to business associates and the work to make sure everything is in place with business associates requires the healthcare institution and the business associates. Considering the HIPAA Omnibus rule went into effect on March 26th, there’s no time for an organization to delay this work. They’re already behind if they haven’t done this already.
Considering the lack of discussion I’ve seen from hospitals, I have a feeling that many of them haven’t dealt with this issue yet at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them didn’t even really realize that they had to do anything. Instead, I expect that many just figured it was on the back of the business associate to change. That’s just not the case and the hospital should be consulting their HIPAA lawyer to make sure everything is in place.
I’d love to hear if others are having different experiences. Did you go through the HIPAA Omnibus rule? Did you have to make a lot of changes? Did you change how you work with business associates?