January 2003

HHS to provide HIPAA conferences

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be convening four National Conferences on the HIPAA Privacy Rule. These one-day conferences will be held in San Diego, Atlanta, New York and Chicago. The conferences are designed to provide an opportunity to hear from and interact with officials who developed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and will be responsible for interpreting and enforcing the rule. The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will provide an expert faculty who will answer questions from attendees during question and answer sessions following their presentations.

Topics to be covered include:

• The principles underlying the Privacy Rule

• How the preemption rules create a national floor of privacy protections

• Who is a covered health care provider

• The implications of being an affiliated covered entity, a hybrid or in an organized health care arrangement

• "Business associate" issues

• What type of information is protected under the HIPAA Privacy Rule and what is meant by the terms "use", "disclosure", "minimum necessary" and "incidental disclosures"

• The Notice of Privacy Practices requirement

• When it is necessary to obtain an authorization to use or disclose PHI and what constitutes a valid authorization

• The right of patient to access, amend and obtain an accounting of disclosures of patient health information

• When to use an authorization for research and when research may be conducted without an authorization

• How research authorizations pre-dating the compliance date are treated

• Appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards

• The requirements to train the workforce on covered entity policies and procedures

• The OCR compliant investigation and compliance review authority.

Information on registration, including registration fees, for the individual conferences can be found at www.gynob.emory.edu/rtc/conferences_hipaa.html. If you need reasonable accommodations because of a disability, such as conference materials in alternative formats, sign language interpreters, etc., please contact calise.munoz@hhs.gov at least 10 - 15 days before the conference.

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