In all the hype and confusion surrounding HITECH, its easy to lose sight of the fact that all the many technical, administrative, ph

In response to client demand, Hyperion Global Partners has released the HITECH Risk Assessment Starter Kit. 

Under HITECH, a Business Associate (BA) agreement is required for covered entities (e.g., your clients) who exchange protected health information (PHI) with their BAs.  As a BA to your clients, your Firm is also required to have BA agreeements with vendors you exchange PHI with, such as offsite records, document production

On February 18, 2009, President Obama signed the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.  Among other things, this health information technology legislation improves and expands current Federal privacy and security protections for health information.

One important intent of the law (among many) is to ensure that new entities not contemplated when the Federal privacy rules were written, as well as those entities that do work on behalf of providers and insurers (called "business associates"), are subject to the same privacy and security rules as providers and health insurers.