{"id":4574,"date":"2014-06-25T01:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T01:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/?p=4574"},"modified":"2021-11-03T01:26:47","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T01:26:47","slug":"ocr-confirms-that-medical-records-should-not-be-left-in-the-driveway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/2014\/06\/25\/ocr-confirms-that-medical-records-should-not-be-left-in-the-driveway\/","title":{"rendered":"OCR Confirms that Medical Records Should Not be Left in the Driveway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The most recent Office for Civil Rights (\u201cOCR\u201d) HIPAA\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/ocr\/privacy\/hipaa\/enforcement\/examples\/hhs-parkview-resolution-cap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">enforcement<\/a>\u00a0action serves as an important reminder to health care providers of the security risks associated with a mishandled medical records custody transfer and the risks of leaving paper records in the driveway.\u00a0 The enforcement action and ensuing settlement \u2013 an $800,000 fine and corrective action plan \u2013 was levied against Parkview Health System, Inc., (\u201cParkview\u201d) a provider of community-based health care services.\u00a0 In 2008, Parkview took custody of the paper medical records of 5,000 \u2013 8,000 patients in connection with a physician\u2019s retirement and in anticipation of purchasing some of the physician\u2019s practice.\u00a0 In 2009, perhaps after the transaction fell through, although the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hhs.gov\/ocr\/privacy\/hipaa\/enforcement\/examples\/hhs-parkview-resolution-cap.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Parkview Resolution Agreement<\/a>\u00a0does not specify, Parkview left 71 boxes of these medical records unattended in the driveway of the physician\u2019s home, and, according to OCR, within 20 feet of a public road and a short distance from a heavily trafficked public shopping area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Medical records custody transfers are extremely common in health care transactions such as asset purchases or sales, or when a health care provider is retiring or leaving a practice.&nbsp; Medical records custody agreements ensure that records are maintained for legally required time periods to facilitate ongoing patient care, payment, audit, and other purposes.&nbsp; Providers should take care to ensure that, in addition to retention and availability, custody arrangements ensure the ongoing security of medical records in any form.&nbsp; Paper records should be secured in accordance with HIPAA standards, for example, stored in locked facility with physical safeguards consistent with HIPAA standards.&nbsp; Storage in a retiring physician\u2019s driveway, abandoned office space, public storage facility, or other unsecured physical location is inconsistent with HIPAA standards.&nbsp; Records in electronic form must be protected in accordance with the HIPAA Security Rule.&nbsp; Both the transferring and the recipient provider should carefully consider technical security measures, who will have electronic access to the records, and how that access will occur.&nbsp; Failure to address these important considerations risks not only a breach but aggressive enforcement by OCR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most recent Office for Civil Rights (\u201cOCR\u201d) HIPAA\u00a0enforcement\u00a0action serves as an important reminder to health care providers of the security risks associated with a mishandled medical records custody transfer and the risks of leaving paper records in the driveway.\u00a0 The enforcement action and ensuing settlement \u2013 an $800,000 fine and corrective action plan \u2013 &#8230; <a title=\"OCR Confirms that Medical Records Should Not be Left in the Driveway\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/2014\/06\/25\/ocr-confirms-that-medical-records-should-not-be-left-in-the-driveway\/\" aria-label=\"More on OCR Confirms that Medical Records Should Not be Left in the Driveway\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4576,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4574\/revisions\/4576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}