The Office of Civil Rights is piloting the HIPAA Audit Program this month to ensure covered entities and business associates are compliant with HIPAA privacy and security rules and breach notification standards, according to the OCR.
The HITECH Act requires HHS to perform periodic audits to check for HIPAA compliance. Under the pilot program, which is part of OCR's health information privacy and security compliance program, OCR will perform up to 150 audits of covered entities from Nov. 2011-Dec. 2012.
This month marks the second step in the program's three-step process. The first step, now completed, is developing audit protocols. The second step is conducting a limited number of audits to test protocols, and the third step is performing complete audits with revised protocols.
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The HITECH Act requires HHS to perform periodic audits to check for HIPAA compliance. Under the pilot program, which is part of OCR's health information privacy and security compliance program, OCR will perform up to 150 audits of covered entities from Nov. 2011-Dec. 2012.
This month marks the second step in the program's three-step process. The first step, now completed, is developing audit protocols. The second step is conducting a limited number of audits to test protocols, and the third step is performing complete audits with revised protocols.
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