Federal HIPPA Increases Cost Again

URDRWHO

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HIPPA's latest addition of HITECH is causing carriers to change their IT protocol. I have found more and more carriers not sending e-mail direct to the agents. Instead they are using third parties to encrypt the e-mails.

This is causing an increased cost to hospitals, doctors officials and pharmacies. Again government increases health care delivery costs.

NCPA: HITECH privacy rules could pose problems for pharmacies

Plus from an E&O risk management it leaves the agent wide open for no defense. If those e-mails that may be needed in a court case for your defense are residing on another party's hard drive, you will need to get permission to get the e-mails. That could be easy or it could be hard to do.

What happens if the third party has a protocol to delete e-mails after a certain time period? If you need defense that is outside the time period you are one hurting puppy.

I use my Contact Manager to log all e-mails, all document, all phone calls, etc. and it resides on my computer.

The hillarious thing is that this doesn't address faxes. Faxes can and do go to wrong parties. From what I have been told, insurance companies, brokerages, etc. will continue to allow faxes to be sent.

From an E&O risk management view, I will go back to faxing or answering underwriting questions by phone. At least with faxes my software date stamps them and keeps copies on my computer.

So much for Obama's promise of money saving efficiency through electronic record keeping. :err:
 
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