Health Info Security has published the transcript from an interview with Susan McAndrew of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. The article is very good and should be read in its entirety. Below are some of the key points.
When asked if business associates as well as covered entities will be part of the 150 audits, McAndrew responded:
Eventually. I’m not sure whether business associates will be part of the initial selection process because they are a little more difficult to obtain information about. We don’t have a list or a registry yet of who is a business associate. We’re still strategizing as to how to collect information about business associates to make a meaningful selection, but we certainly are looking to KPMG to have protocols developed to give us the capability of auditing business associates.
It’s unclear at this point whether or not we will be able to conduct and test the business associate protocols. We are hopeful of being able to do so. The primary focus is going to be on the protocols for the covered entities and proving the audit results with regard to covered
If should be interesting to see how they collect the list of business associates. Will they require each covered entity to identify their own business associates?
When asked if the audits will be looking for general compliance or more specific issues of compliance McAndrew replied:
However, at least initially, because we’re very interested in assuring that the protocols are complete and provide comprehensive feedback to us on the degree of compliance, we will be focusing primarily on more comprehensive aspects of compliance
That can be read into as they will be looking to see how closely an organization is compliant with the HIPAA regulations. High level may include policies and procedure, when the last risk assessment was conducted, employee training, incident response procedures, etc.
When asked about onsite audits and if results will be publicly published, she responded:
The model that we’re testing is your typical onsite audit. … There will definitely be advanced notice to the entity. There will usually be advanced request for documentation and survey material from the covered entity so that the auditor can best use their time onsite to focus in on what they need to do and the people they need to talk to onsite. And then, as is typical following the onsite visit, the auditors, if they need to, will collect more information. They will complete their draft report. Typically the draft report is shared with the covered entity before it’s final, and the covered entity’s responses to the findings of the auditor would be incorporated as part of the final audit report.
We haven’t decided that (publishing results publicly) yet. Part of this whole endeavor is to have an evaluation component where we can be assured that the information that we are getting through this audit process is accurate and meaningful.
That said, whether we do it in summary form or publish the individual report similar to the way that the inspector general does with their audit materials still needs to be worked out. I think that we will be looking at that very closely as part of our evaluation criteria.
So audits will be onsite and the organization will have advanced notice. Draft reports will be prepared prior to publication. It is not clear if the results will be published for each audit or just a summary will be published. Will this turn into another wall of shame?
And finally, McAndrew gives insight to organizations of how to prepare for the coming audits:
But this is certainly an opportunity for the covered entities to review their policies and procedures to make sure that they are complete and up-to-date. Also, the way that they are managing the information, whether it’s in computerized files or good old-fashioned paper records, make sure that they are fully documenting what’s being done with the information and how it’s being managed and safeguarded. The [HIPAA] security rule has its own requirements for risk analysis and risk management programs. …
Through the experience that we’ve been having with covered entities on breaches and incident response plans, [those plans] need to be up-to-date and flexible, as well as emergency backup systems. I think this is just another opportunity for covered entities to take a moment from their busy, busy days and do a self-assessment. We think that this will help them down the road in terms of building their own capacity for a robust compliance program, training of individuals and making sure that there is awareness throughout the entity of their security and privacy rules and responsibilities.
So she recommends:
- Creating or reviewing the appropriate policies and procedures
- Preforming a risk assessment and well as a risk management program (implementing the results of the risk assessment)
- Creating incident response plans
- Training employees and implementing an employee awareness program
Good advice for every organization!
Leave a Reply