We’ve had a chance to see now that HIPAA/HITECH really is going to impact the medical transcription business and we know preserving and maintaining confidentiality of Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) is essential to comply with HIPAA. Okay, now where can we get the latest information regarding HIPAA to keep updating our own knowledgebase? Where can we find online HIPAA mentors to clear our doubts whatever it may be, how silly it may be? Are there any online HIPAA information resources where you can subscribe to get updated of the latest news?
Of course the answer is yes, there are a lot of informational sites on the Internet related to HITECH and HIPAA. After some searching and reviewing I think I have separated the wheat from the chaff, chosen a few HIPAA blogs and websites, HIPAA newsletters, HIPAA twitterers etc. Lets take a look at a few to see useful HIPAA information resources worth watching and subscribing.
HIPAA Blogs
I hope all of you are up on locating RSS feeds of blogs or web sites and know how to fetch information using RSS feeds from all over the web without the need to visit those sources again and again. With that assumption, here are a few blogs on HIPAA that contain some useful information and discussion.
- HIPAA Blog At BlogSpot authored by Jeffery P. Drummond of Jackson Walker LLP.
- HIPAA.com with a bunch of contributors viz., Alex Zaltsman, Carolyn Hartley, Ed Jones, and Edward Shay.
- HIPAA Compliance News brought to you by HIPAA Compliance Federation of America.
- HIPAA, HITECH and HIT by multiple authors brought to you by Fox Rothschild LLP.
- HIPAA Update by multiple authors brought to you by HCPro, Inc. (Their Q&A type of posts are interesting.)
- HIPAA Vital Signs authored by D. Grant Peterson.
- Realtime IT Compliance authored by Rebecca Herold of Privacy Guidance.
The more we discuss HIPAA and HITECH, the more we come to know about it. We need precise information on the current state of the subject; hence it didn’t matter who the author is.
HIPAA Email Newsletters
Even after the advent of XML and RSS feeds, email still remains the preferred mode of receipt of information. Hence if you still feel RSS is something only techies could use, here are a few HIPAA email news alerts worth subscribing to for information sent to you through email subscription.
- HIPAA/HITECH Compliance Act newsletter from Digital Business Law Group.
- HIPAA Weekly Advisor from HCPro, Inc. (Alternatively RSS feed of HIPAA Weekly Advisor is available.) Q&A type of their updates is really very interesting.
- HIPAA Flash newsletter from BridgeFront. (Read the latest newsletter.)
HIPAA News Alerts on Twitter
Microblogging tools like Twitter and FriendFeed are a great tool for keeping up to date on hot topics or even finding jobs if used properly, and there are a few HIPAA twitterers too. Here are a few:
- HIPAA Explained (Official tweets of HIPAA.com)
- HIPAA Compliance News (Official tweets of Health Care Compliance Association)
- Privacy Professor (Tweets of Rebecca Herold of Privacy Guidance)
- Privacy Security (Tweets of Bill Turner, Chief Security Officer at APS Healthcare)
- Carlos Levya (Author of LawTech TV and co-author of HIPAA Survival Guide)
HIPAA Web Sites
Other resources like HIPAA discussion groups or HIPAA forums and resources like Facebook or Linkedin haven’t been included. Essentially, the above mentioned resources are the ones that I have reviewed, and these are probably just the tip of the iceberg. If you know any other useful HIPAA information resources other than these please respond and post the information.
