Business Associate Agreement

Hi. This is Dave Kats, a therapist consultant, and I have a tip for you. I go through seasons of what I call slipping and checking. In other words, my office procedure goes along well for a while, and then I slip. I started doing some things not right. Then I realize it and I check myself and I get back to doing them right again. This is our season of slipping and checking. One of the things I found that I had slipped on a little bit was not getting business associate agreements like I should.

Remember, HIPAA has a rule that anybody that comes in to do work for you, a business associate, in other words, that has a chance to see your PHI, your personal health information from the patients, they have to sign a business associate agreement. Now, there's a few people that don't have to do that. The funnels like the post office or the bank doesn't have to do it. The bank is a financial institution. They don't have to do it. The post office is a funnel, they don't have to do it.

If you have somebody come in, maybe somebody work on your computers, they have to sign a business associates agreement with you. Now, the reason you want that is because it's about a five or six-page form that tells them, they can't divulge information from your office or they're in trouble. If you don't have them sign it, you're in trouble. Always get the business associate agreement signed and then we three-hole punch them and keep them in the back of our HIPAA manual because if anybody ever comes and checks for those things, if you have your HIPAA manual, if you know where it's at, if it's up to date, and if you have the business associate agreements in the back, if you're using the compliance form, the one that says acknowledgment of HIPAA privacy policies. If you have that and you have the privacy policy in your office, I'm sure that you would pass with flying colors. This is Dave Katz, make sure you're using the business associate agreements. Thanks for listening.