Medical records compliance, privacy and security is a complex ever-changing area of law about which all medical providers must be aware — on both the federal and local level.
Under Florida law, statutes 456.057 and 395.3025 apply to individual providers and hospitals/medical facilities. Florida law is specific about medical record ownership. The owner of records has a duty to protect privacy and security of records. That said, if you merge, sell your practice or buy a practice, this question gets complex and issues of liability and responsibility come into play.
There is a lot of scrutiny not only from entities like the Agency for Health Care Administration, Department of Health, Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine, chiropractic medicine on proper release of records. Often patients complain that the release is not quick enough, which starts investigations of hospitals, surgical centers, doctors and other providers.
All health care providers must be prepared to answer several questions:
- Do you do an inventory on paper records?
- Do you have an agreement on disposal methods? How will they be integrated?
- How will they be made secure?
- Will they be private?
- Will people have access to them after the transaction is complete?
- Who owns them?
- For how long are authorizations good?
If you or your organization is not completely sure that your records process is compliant, it is crucial to reach out to a skilled health care law firm to reduce your risk and exposure.
We at Lowe & Evander, P.A., have extensive experience representing and training hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and other facilities on medical records confidentiality matters. This includes:
, have extensive experience representing and training hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers and other facilities on medical records confidentiality matters. This includes:
- Helping understand what statutes under Florida law can
be congruent but also different from HIPAA
- How to release records
- How to protect them
- Drafting procedures
- Drafting authorization release forms and consent to release forms
- Defending doctors with DOH investigations
- Defending in federal HHSOCR office of civil rights investigations
Regardless of your issue, our Orlando medical records lawyers will bring their expertise to help you proactively address all issues in the most efficient, effective and economical way.
To schedule an initial consultation with one of our Florida medical records attorney, call (407) 332-6353 or contact us online.