Today is the first birthday of the HITECH Act. President Obama signed this bill into law on February 17, 2009, as part of the Recovery Act. This first birthday is significant because the HITECH Act's business associate provisions took effect today. Business associates are billing services, claims administrators, and other parties who handle protected health information for HIPAA covered entities, such as health plans, health claims clearinghouses, and health care providers who use electronic claim transactions. The business associate concept which the Department of Health and Human Services ("HHS") created in the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules is now enshrined in statute, and business associates are now subject to HIPAA's enhanced civil and criminal penalties. AIS Health Business Daily recently offered a useful perspective on these new liabilities.
BNA is reporting that HHS is developing regulations to provide guidance on the changes that the HITECH Act made to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules. HHS has not indicated when the regulations will be published.
Finally, Government HIT News reports that HHS "named Joy Pritts, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, as chief privacy officer in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT."
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