10/05/2013    Michael L. Brody, DPM

Using Smartphones to Document NH Visits (Michael M. Rosenblatt, DPM)

Dr. Rosenblatt believes that the forces of HIPAA
are less to worry about than the forces of a NH
chart audit. I disagree. HIPAA fines, when
imposed, can go as high as 1.5 million dollars.
In the case of an audit, as long as you have not
committed fraud, your liability is based upon the
amount that they have determined you over-billed.

Many apps that are made for Smartphones are
actually malicious. Just because it is on the
Apple Store or on Google Play does not mean that
malicious code has not been embedded to get
information from your smartphone. Once your cell
phone is turned on, these malicious apps can have
full access to the phone since the encryption/
decryption happens in 'real time' and is done by
the operating system.

Up until recently, in order to file a HIPAA
complaint against your office, a patient had to go
through a fairly lengthy paper process. The OCR
(The HIPAA Police) has recently launched a website
that streamlines the process for a patient to file
a HIPAA complaint through their website. OCR
stated that the volume of complaints they have
received since launching this website has nearly
doubled.

In addition, OCR gets to keep a portion of the
fines that are levied to support their operations.
They are contracting with external auditors
(similar to RAC auditors) and hiring additional
staff to interface with those auditing companies.
OCR expects to begin random HIPAA audits in early
2014.

This focus on privacy and security of patient
records is NOT ABSURD. To date, the PHI (Protected
Health Information) of over 26 million patients
has been compromised. Medical identity theft is a
major problem, and patients have a CIVIL RIGHT to
privacy of their medical records. I need to point
out that OCR (The HIPAA Police) stands for the
Office for Civil Rights. If you breach the privacy
of patient information you have violated a
patients civil rights.

Each and every provider is REQUIRED to do their
best to protect the PHI under their control. Even
when you do your best, things can go wrong. In
fact, the HIPAA regulations go into great detail
to explain that if you do your best, and do have a
HIPAA violation despite your best efforts, you
will be exempt from fines. Doing your best means
includes what you do both before and after a HIPAA
event. Based upon the known risks of using a
smartphone, and the availability of low-cost
digital cameras that can capture patient images,
If you use a smart phone to take digital pictures,
you are not doing your best.

Michael L. Brody, DPM, Commack, NY,
mbrody@tldsystems.com

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