The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) required many changes for us in the way we practice healthcare. You are actually responsible for holding the people that you do business with accountable for maintaining confidentiality . If you actually exchange confidential information with them as a means of conducting business then you should have them sign a HIPAA Business agreement. For example, if you became a subcontractor for someone providing mental health services to another agency you would want to have an agreement with that person because you’re actually conducting business as well as exchanging confidential information. Progress with somebody is just another clinician all you need is a release of information form in order to exchange information on a one-time basis regarding a particular client. Business means that money exchanges hands, otherwise it’s just two clinician’s talking about the client with that client’s permission. Even if money does not exchange hands but it’s clearly a business arrangement you have that requires exchanging confidential information, then you need to have one of these agreements between the two of you.
Another common situation is that someone like an electrician, carpenter, document shredder company, janitor etc. comes onto your premises and provides a service for you in which they might run into confidential information. If that does not involve exchanging confidential information, then all you need to do is have them fill out a HIPAA Vendor Agreement. Below are some free PDFs of ones like I use. If you would like Word documents of these and all the basic documents you would need to see a patient for the first time so you can simply find and replace your company name with the phrase YOUR COMPANY NAME, please e-mail me at store@vpsproductions.com. If I get enough response I may make this package of documents available on my commercial website
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/DrJosephMcCoy
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/DrJosephMcCoy2
for a very modest price possibly as as low as $3.99. In the meantime here are the free HIPAA documents.
Sincerely, Joseph H McCoy PhD
BEFORE YOU CLICK! You accept the responsibility of the accuracy of the information contained within the documents and the proper use of these documents if you choose to download the documents at the two links below this disclaimer.