New California Medical Privacy Laws
At the end of the 2008 Legislative Session two bills were heard and adopted to deal with some medical record privacy breaches that occurred in several southern California hospitals. The Governor's Office was the sponsor of the bills and had great interest in the issue since his wife, Maria Shriver, had experienced a medical records breach. There were two bills SB 541 (Alquist) dealing with hospital accountability for medical records and AB 211 (Jones) that impacts all other providers who maintain and handle confidential medical information. The latter would impact radiologists in free standing imaging centers or private offices and the former to hospital setting. Both bills were signed into law and took effect on 1/1/09.
The amendments to the bill resulted in an acceptable change for organized medicine and there was no opposition. SB 541 updates California statute to conform to existing federal law (HIPAA) that requires providers to take reasonable steps to safeguard the privacy of a patient's medical information from unauthorized or unlawful access or use and to require regulators to consider a provider's size, complexity and capability when determining compliance. It conforms to HIPAA requirements and the provision of the bill allowing a health care provider's licensing authority to discipline for violations was already current law in California. There are potential; administrative fines and sanctions that are predicated on intentional and willful acts of disclosure of confidential medical information. The potential fines or sanctions can be mitigated by the provider efforts to restrict disclosure and use of prudent practices. This program is administered by the Ca. Office of Health Information Integrity and is funded solely through fines or assessed penalties.
SB 541 regarding hospitals and other institutions contains similar provision for fines but also contains a mandatory reporting obligations within 5 calendar days for any unlawful access or disclosure of patient medical records. Such reporting would be made to the Ca. Dept. of Public Health and would include a description of the breach, the personnel involved in the breach, the specific patients, and the date of the breach.
Impact of Ban on Balance Billing by HBPs for HMO Patients
We have informed you of the Ca. Supreme Court decision and adopted DMHC regulation prohibiting balance billing of HMO enrollees by non-contracted hospital based physicians for emergency services. There is information on the CRS website at www.calrad.org outlining the issues and providing a survey being compiled by the CMA on the impact of these changes.
The CRS is available to members to answer any questions. Any provider that is unhappy with the level of payment provided by a plan or delegated medical group on a non-contract basis can use a process with the Department of Managed Health Care to seek a determination and enforcement of reasonable compensation. That information is contained on the CRS website.
Applications Available for ACR Fellowship
CRS members can apply for ACR fellowship which would be considered later this year and awarded in 2010. The easiest way to access the application and information on the process is to go the ACR website at www.acr.org, click the Membership-Member icon on the left.
Fellowship applications should optimally be forwarded to the CRS by March 1, 2009. If applicants can't complete the application by then please notify the CRS that an application may be submitted shortly after that date. We encourage all qualified members to apply.
|
