If your law firm provides any services to any entity in healthcare, I strongly suggest you start getting familiar with HIPAA...in a hurry. Legal services is one of the types of messages specifically mentioned in the section of the regulation addressing business associates. Whether a law firm providing services to a health care entity is a Business Associate or that health care entity will depend essentially on two things: (1) is the health care entity a "covered entity" under HIPAA, and (2) does the law firm receive protected health information in the course of performing those services. If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then you need to have a Business Associate Agreement with the health care entity.
Darrell Rishel, J.D. Director of Information Services Arapahoe House, Inc. This message is not legal advice. > -----Original Message----- > From: Jason Cantos [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 11:24 AM > To: WEDI SNIP Privacy Workgroup List > Subject: business associate questions > > > I work in a small law firm. A couple of our clients asked us to sign > business associate agreements. These business associate > agreements require > the law firm to adopt HIPAA specific policies and procedures. > Are there any > business associates (law firms specifically) that are doing this? > > On an unrelated matter, the provider of our dental insurance > asked us to > sign a business associate agreement, with us as the business > associate--I > just don't see how we are a business associate in this situation. > > Thanks so much for your help. > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > --- > The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not > moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore > represent the views of the individual participants, and do > not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of > Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official > opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database > at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should > not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion > of specific vendor products and services. They also are not > intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or > unprofessional communication at any time. > > You are currently subscribed to wedi-privacy as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe from this list, go to the > Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org or > send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > If you need to unsubscribe but your current email address is > not the same as the address subscribed to the list, please > use the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org > --- The WEDI SNIP listserv to which you are subscribed is not moderated. The discussions on this listserv therefore represent the views of the individual participants, and do not necessarily represent the views of the WEDI Board of Directors nor WEDI SNIP. If you wish to receive an official opinion, post your question to the WEDI SNIP Issues Database at http://snip.wedi.org/tracking/. These listservs should not be used for commercial marketing purposes or discussion of specific vendor products and services. They also are not intended to be used as a forum for personal disagreements or unprofessional communication at any time. You are currently subscribed to wedi-privacy as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this list, go to the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org or send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you need to unsubscribe but your current email address is not the same as the address subscribed to the list, please use the Subscribe/Unsubscribe form at http://subscribe.wedi.org
