Phase 2 HIPAA Audits Kick Off With Random Surveys

Ideally, the only reason you would know about the following is due to scribes such as myself — but for the record, the HHS Office for Civil Rights has sent out a bunch of pre-audit screening surveys to covered entities. Once it gets responses, it will do a Phase 2 audit not only of covered entities but also business associates, so things should get heated.

While these take the form of Meaningful Use audits, covering incentives paid from January 1, 2011 through June 30, 2014, it’s really more about checking how well you protect ePHI.

This effort is a drive to be sure that providers and BAs are complying with the HIPAA privacy, security and breach notification requirements. Apparently OCR found, during Phase 1 pilot audits in 2011 and 2012, that there was “pervasive non-compliance” with regs designed to safeguard protected health information, the National Law Review reports.

However, these audits aren’t targeting the “bad guys.” Selection for the audits is random, according to HHS Office of the Inspector General.

So if you get one of the dreaded pre-screening letters, how should you respond? According a thoughtful blog post by Maryanne Lambert for CureMD, auditors will be focused on the following areas:

  • Risk Assessment audits and reports
  • EHR security plan
  • Organizational chart
  • Network diagram
  • EHR web sites and patient portals
  • Policies and procedures
  • System inventory
  • Tools to perform vulnerability scans
  • Central log and event reports
  • EHR system users list
  • Contractors supporting the EHR and network perimeter devices.

According to Lambert, the feds will want to talk to the person primarily responsible for each of these areas, a process which could quickly devolve into a disaster if those people aren’t prepared. She recommends that if you’re selected for an audit, you run through a mock audit ahead of time to make sure these staff members can answer questions about how well policies and processed are followed.

Not that anyone would take the presence of HHS on their premises lightly, but it’s worth bearing in mind that a stumble in one corner of your operation could have widespread consequences. Lambert notes that in addition to defending your security precautions, you have to make sure that all parts of your organization are in line:

Be mindful while planning for this audit as deficiencies identified for one physician in a physician group or one hospital within a multi-hospital system, may apply to the other physicians and hospitals using the same EHR system and/or implementing meaningful use in the same way.  Thus, the incentive payments at risk in this audit may be greater than the payments to the particular provider being audited.

But as she points out, there is one possible benefit to being audited. If you prepare well, it might save you not only trouble with HHS but possibly lawsuits for breaches of information. Hey, everything has some kind of silver lining, right?

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

2 Comments

  • These audits are aimed at those EP’s who received MU incentive moneys? Those EP’s not participating in the MU program should not worry about “audit”-ions?

    Please clarify the selection process.

    Also what are the potential punishments for an unfavorable outcome of such an audit?

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