Long-term care providers can now utilize three new models of Notice of Privacy Practices documents to maintain Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliance, two government agencies have announced.
A Notice of Privacy Practices describes how a provider ensures patient privacy and informs individuals of the privacy rights under HIPAA. All entities covered by HIPAA must make this type of notice available to any person who requests it, and must prominently post it to any website that provides information about services, according to the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
The agencies announced the release of the new model notices in an email Monday. These were created based on input from “consumers and key stakeholders,” and reflect recent regulatory changes in the HIPAA Omnibus Rule. The notices come in three different styles and are customizable, allowing providers to enter their own information prior to distributing and posting to the web.
Each field in the models contains instructions for what information to include, and the agencies also released the instructions as a separate PDF.
