Dispose of PHI properly and help eliminate this area of potential liability
In general, examples of proper disposal methods may
include, but are not limited to:
•
For PHI in paper records, shredding, burning, pulping, or pulverizing the
records so that PHI is rendered essentially unreadable, indecipherable, and
otherwise cannot be reconstructed.
•
Maintaining labeled prescription bottles and other PHI in opaque bags in a
secure area and using a disposal vendor as a business associate to pick up and
shred or otherwise destroy the PHI.
•
For PHI on electronic media, clearing (using software or hardware products to
overwrite media with non-sensitive data), purging (degaussing or exposing the
media to a strong magnetic field in order to disrupt the recorded magnetic
domains), or destroying the media (disintegration, pulverization, melting,
incinerating, or shredding).
In addition
to the properly disposing of PHI and ePHI, it is important to remember that you
must also properly dispose of all PHI that has been accessed by any electronic
device. If the device is no longer going to be used, it is very difficult to
properly dispose of the ePHI files on these devices, so HIPAA suggest the
entire device is destroyed.
Properly
disposing of all PHI and ePHI is improve greatly reduce the risk of a health
information breach, thus improving your chances of avoiding a violation fine.
For more
information on protecting your office with this issue and other HIPAA, HR,
OSHA, and Medicare topics, please visit our web site: http://www.hcsiinc.com or email support at support@hcsiinc.com.
Source: http://bit.ly/1MGGOlm
No comments:
Post a Comment