DISCUSSION: Hospital Implements New Minimum Necessary Polices for Telephone Messages
From the e-Activity, give your opinion as to whether or not the new procedures that the hospital implemented efficiently resolve the issues in this case.
Next, suggest an additional procedure that the hospital could utilize in order to secure patient privacy regarding medical condition and treatment plan. Justify your response.
Covered Entity: General Hospital
Issue: Minimum Necessary; Confidential Communications
A hospital employee did not observe minimum necessary requirements when she left a telephone message with the daughter of a patient that detailed both her medical condition and treatment plan. An OCR investigation also indicated that the confidential communications requirements were not followed, as the employee left the message at the patient's home telephone number, despite the patient's instructions to contact her through her work number. To resolve the issues in this case, the hospital developed and implemented several new procedures. One addressed the issue of minimum necessary information in telephone message content. Employees were trained to provide only the minimum necessary information in messages, and were given specific direction as to what information could be left in a message. Employees also were trained to review registration information for patient contact directives regarding leaving messages. The new procedures were incorporated into the standard staff privacy training, both as part of a refresher series and mandatory yearly compliance training.