How and when you grant access to your patient medical records is about to change. Effective April 5th, 2021, new federal guidelines require you to more readily grant access to your patients’ health information, or else. Information blocking exceptions. The regulation driving this change is the new 21st Century CURES Act (also referred to as […]

Breaking medical records retention and destruction rules means big-time financial penalties — up to $50,000 per violation. And while you generally recognize the most common forms of protected health information (PHI) for example patient names and addresses, you’ll be surprised by the many, many types of patient information that are subject to medical records retention […]

Retaining medical records for even one patient for the required amount of time is really confusing because there are so many laws you need to follow. But you must keep medical records long enough for all of your patients to protect yourself against hefty FCA violations (up to $50,000 a piece!) and other compliance penalties. […]

You must be vigilant in timely releasing patient medical records or face $85,000 in penalties. That’s the amount fined to the second provider since fines began in 2019. In December, Korunda Medical, LLC in Florida was fined $85,000 for slow-walking a patient’s medical records. This is the second enforcement action and settlement leveraged by the […]

With fines for medical record request violations on the rise, you can’t afford to not comply with releasing records the right way. Sure, distributing records can be an irritation in a busy day but dealing with costly HIPAA violations is way worse. Read on for the skinny on medical records requests – what rules to […]

You may have recently seen the announcement that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) had their first patient access enforcement action. The $85,000 payment wasn’t recorded as an actual HIPAA violation, but as as settlement with Bayfront Health of St. Petersburg (Bayfront). So, why should […]