HITECH Act interim final rules increase penalties for violations
Enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, was signed into law on February 17, 2009, to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology. Subtitle D of the HITECH Act addresses the privacy and security concerns associated with the electronic transmission of health information, in part, through several provisions that strengthen the civil and criminal enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) rules.
As of February 18, 2009, Section 13410(d) of the HITECH Act, revised section 1176(a) of the Social Security Act (the Act) by establishing:
Four categories of violations that reflect increasing levels of culpability;
Four corresponding tiers of penalty amounts that significantly increase the minimum penalty amount for each violation; and
A maximum penalty amount of $1.5 million for all violations of an identical provision.
The HITECH Act also amended section 1176(b) of the Act by:
Striking the previous bar on the imposition of penalties if the covered entity did not know and with the exercise of reasonable diligence would not have known of the violation; and
Providing a prohibition on the imposition of penalties for any violation that is corrected within a 30-day time period, as long as the violation was not due to willful neglect.
Although the effective date of this interim final rule is November 30, 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has invited public comments on it, which will be considered if they are received by December 29, 2009.
Written in plain-English and tab-divided by subject, J. J. Keller'sHIPAA Compliance Manual will help you make sense of your organization's role and responsibilities under HIPAA - the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
This manual makes it easier to understand how the HIPAA requirements affect your company and what policies and procedures need to be developed.
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