Health Law Alert: Free HIPAA and Minnesota Law Privacy Tools Available to Providers
Gray Plant Mooty is pleased to announce the release of the Foundations in Privacy Toolkit, a compilation of template documents and guidance material that will help providers exchange patient health information in Minnesota. The toolkit is available free of charge and can be accessed via the Gray Plant Mooty website.
Click here to view the Foundations in Privacy Toolkit.
Foundations in Privacy Toolkit
As many health care providers know and experience, exchanging patient information can be challenging from both a legal and operational perspective. From the legal perspective, providers are forced to sort through the myriad of privacy laws, rules, and regulations and determine which rules apply to a particular use or disclosure of patient information. Given that Minnesota law often conflicts with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), this is no easy feat. From an operational perspective, organizations are required by HIPAA to develop privacy policies and procedures and train their workforce on these complex rules.
The toolkit was developed to address these challenges. Pursuant to the Privacy, Security and Consent Management for Electronic Health Information Exchange grant, the Minnesota Department of Health partnered with Gray Plant Mooty to analyze legal barriers and develop tools to support the exchange of health information in Minnesota.
The toolkit contains the following types of material, organized by subject area:
- Template policies and procedures
- Flow charts
- Template agreements
- Checklists
These documents can be used by providers in many ways. The policy and procedure documents can be customized and implemented as part of an organization’s HIPAA privacy compliance efforts. The flow charts and checklists can be used to analyze business relationships and unique disclosure situations, and the template agreements can be used to guide negotiations and simplify execution. All of the documents can be used to educate and train your workforce.
Upcoming In-Person and Webinar Trainings
In conjunction with the release of the toolkit, Gray Plant Mooty will be hosting a number of in-person and webinar trainings. We recently presented at the Minnesota Medical Group Management Association Winter Conference and trained attendees on how the toolkit can be best utilized, focusing our discussion around common health care privacy issues such as HIPAA breaches, disclosing information to a business associate, and disclosing information in an emergency situation. We are excited to offer additional in-person training sessions on the following dates:
- April 4, 2017: State Innovation Model (SIM) Learning Days
- June 15, 2017: Minnesota e-Health Summit
- July 20, 2017: GPM Health Law Conference
Gray Plant Mooty is also preparing in-depth webinar trainings on certain designated topics. Our next webinar will provide strategies for responding to a HIPAA breach and will be available on March 15. These webinar trainings are free of charge and will be available on-demand at the Gray Plant Mooty website.
If you have questions about HIPAA or state privacy requirements or the toolkit, please contact Jesse Berg at jesse.berg@lathropgpm.com (612-632-3374), Tim Johnson at tim.johnson@lathropgpm.com (612-632-3208), or Julia Reiland at julia.reiland@lathropgpm.com (612-632-3280).