oluntary compliance best way to protect privacy, HHS official says March 4, 2003
Voluntary compliance with the HIPAA medical privacy rule is the best way to protect health information, and the federal government's enforcement of the regulation will be largely complaints-driven, an HHS official told an audience Sunday at a national HIPAA conference. Most complaints about violations to the HIPAA privacy rule can be resolved easily, said Richard Campanelli, director of HHS' Office of Civil Rights, which is responsible for enforcement of the privacy rule. "OCR's goal is not to maximize enforcement. Our goal is to protect personal health information," Campanelli said. HHS has said several times that patient complaints would spur HIPAA enforcement; the agency won't go out of its way to punish health care organizations that violate the privacy rule, Modern Physician reports. Campanelli said he recommended that patients make complaints to their providers before going to the government about privacy violations. HHS' privacy rules go into effect on April 14 (Versel, 3/3).
