HIPAA & Privacy Law & Regulation
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Overview
Healthcare privacy law has become an increasingly important business issue for providers, insurers, and employers since the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), promulgation of the Privacy Regulation, and heightened awareness about financial and personal information.
Members of the firm’s health law practice advise and counsel clients with respect to implicit HIPAA-related issues that arise in connection with business transactions and in the ordinary course of business, including: identifying obligations under HIPAA impacting employers that are not healthcare providers; identifying the need for business associate contractual provisions in business transactions; determining the relationship of specific state law confidentiality requirements (such as mental health, and drug and alcohol laws) to HIPAA; clarifying the relationship between HIPAA’s confidentiality requirements and those used for clinical research under the Common Rule; and giving guidance on HIPAA’s marketing implications for a clinical trial recruitment program.
We provide such services as:
- Responding to specific questions about the scope or implications of a particular provision of the Privacy Regulation or about the applicability of the Privacy Regulation to a business issue
- Reviewing and revising privacy policies
- Providing guidance to mental health providers on the relationship of the Privacy Regulation to state laws
- Assisting corporate attorneys in business transactions where a business associate agreement may be required or other provisions of the Privacy Regulation may be implicated
- Providing guidance to non-covered entities about privacy issues Providing guidance to other attorneys regarding HIPAA issues in litigation
We have monitored the development of HIPAA’s various proposed and final regulations on privacy and security, and sponsored a number of regional seminars on HIPAA and healthcare privacy matters. Our attorneys are regularly invited to speak and write for national and regional conferences and publications on HIPAA and healthcare privacy issues. We have also given joint presentations with members of the firm’s insurance department on a broad range of privacy and security related issues.
Our representations in this area include:
- Serving as HIPAA compliance counsel to a major academic medical center
- Developing and implementing HIPAA compliance policies and procedures for a wide range of healthcare providers and self-insured health plans
- Reviewing business associate agreements
- Serving as HIPAA counsel to a community mental health provider
- Counseling a variety of business clients regarding HIPAA issues relating to various transactions