Date: April 16, 2002

To: Public Hospital District Administrators

From: Jeff Mero, Executive Director

Re: HIPAA Support

As many of you (particularly in Eastern and Central Washington) know, AWPHD has signed an agreement with Health Future, based in Medford, Oregon, to develop a product that will guide and support Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance in smaller institutions.

Every day now I get offers for HIPAA Compliance training sessions and products. Typically they are priced beyond the reach of many of you; more importantly (at least from my point of view) they are designed for much larger systems than you are managing. The products depend on you opening your doors for expensive long-term on-site consulting or on you sending key staff off-site for (at least) week-long seminars that, again, are designed for people working in systems larger and more bureaucratic than the ones you are running. We will have an Introduction to HIPAA videoconference on May 2 in Moses Lake. This introduction will be free to those participating.

The Health Future program for HIPAA compliance will meet your needs without disrupting your operations or staff any more than is necessary. H.M. "Tim" Timmons, Health Future's Vice President for Compliance and Regulatory Services understands small hospital operations. He and his colleague Laura Frazier, RHIT, who directs Health Future's Corporate Compliance programs, have extensive experience presenting to and working in a variety of settings including large and small hospitals, large and small multi-specialty clinics and small group practices. Resumes for Tim and Laura are enclosed.

The Health Future approach to HIPAA compliance provides your employees with the tools and plans they need to meet the requirements of the law. We will use a mix of on-site regional meetings, videoconferences, webcasts and telephone support to reach our goal. Your internal team (medical records manager, information systems manager and billing officer), working from a manual designed for AWPHD by Health Future, will develop a business plan to achieve compliance, conduct an internal self-assessment for each of the three main areas of concern and implement the strategies necessary to meet the demands and deadlines of the act.

We are working with Washington Casualty Corporation, Western Professional Insurance, HHS regional compliance officials, the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society and counsel to both AWPHD and WSHA to ensure that all our materials meet state and federal requirements and expectations.

Here's what participants in the program will get:

• Health Future staff will provide roughly eight hours of general HIPAA education-two hours of general overview, then two hours each on the three major areas of concern to operations: Transactions, Security, and Privacy. This education will be offered using videoconferencing and webcasts. We will make every effort to ensure this education is available to you in as convenient a fashion as possible.
• Health Future staff will also provide two face-to-face training sessions of about five hours each. The first seminar will focus on developing a business plan and strategy for HIPAA compliance; the second will train your team to use the self-assessment tools that are the backbone to your internal compliance efforts. These sessions will be offered on a regional basis.
• Your team will leave the self-assessment training session with a policy and procedures manual and templates for putting their compliance plan into action. Over the following three months, Health Future staff will be available to provide telephone support. If necessary, AWPHD will work to arrange any additional educational or support programs, but the program is designed so your team works independently to meet the law's requirements.
• There will be another series of education programs early in the third quarter of this year to provide your compliance team with an opportunity to troubleshoot any problems and to ensure that, if necessary, they have the information they need to request an extension to complete implementation.

I know some of you already have a HIPAA compliance program underway. While I am confident that the Health Future program will be a successful experience, I am not suggesting anyone stop what they are already doing. A number of districts asked that I work to develop a product that is designed particularly for small districts. That's what we have done.

Enclosed is a form you can fill out to participate in the AWPHD--Health Future HIPAA Compliance initiative. Your prompt response will allow us to choose convenient program locations for the May-June regional sessions.