Washington

As of April 14, the federal government expected all of the nation's health care providers to comply with a massive privacy rule — the first in a series of compliance deadlines associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

Preparing to enforce this deadline, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights is adding eight new employees to its HIPAA staff, bringing the total number of HIPAA enforcers to 31, the OCR announced last month.

Despite these additions, “the Office of Civil Rights is not a large office,” said Corrine Parver, a health care attorney and partner in the health law services practice of Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky. “The HIPAA police are not going to start trooping around the country enforcing compliance.”

Nonetheless, complying with HIPAA's privacy rule should be a top priority for home medical equipment providers, she said. “I have a concern that some companies — particularly smaller companies — are not taking this seriously enough. A week away from the deadline, [I was] still getting calls with questions. I'm concerned that people still have a less-than-adequate foundation to do what they need to do.”

While providers may not feel immediate pressure from the federal government to comply, they should be aware that a patient who is familiar with HIPAA could hold them liable for HIPAA violations, Parver continued.

The good news for providers who still are struggling to comply is that the OCR is providing useful compliance information, Parver said. “[The OCR] still is holding a lot of telephone conference calls, which is a positive display of the government's attempt to make this [rule] comprehensible.”

More information is available at www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa.

For breaking news, go to www.homecaremonday.com, the electronic news service of the home medical equipment industry.