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(RIVERWOODS, ILL., February 26, 2003) — With the April 14, 2003 deadline looming, hospitals are laboring to become compliant with the new patient privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). To support health care institutions in implementing the HIPAA privacy rule, CCH INCORPORATED, a leading provider of health law and compliance information and software, has released the HIPAA Privacy Guide and HIPAA Privacy Training. These essential resources for understanding and implementing the HIPAA privacy rule were written by CCH health care analysts and attorneys from Harris Beach LLP, a top U.S. law firm focusing on health care.

The HIPAA privacy rule provides safeguards for patients’ personal information and medical records, and the cost to a hospital for not complying with it could be as much as $250,000 — a liability few hospitals can afford.

"Hospitals are frustrated because the HIPAA privacy rule was in flux for so long and now that it’s finally been completed, the deadline is just around the corner," said CCH health care analyst Gordon Shea, JD. "Hospitals need to move fast to come into compliance and they need a source of information they can trust."

Written for hospital compliance officers, CFOs, privacy officers, administrators and health care attorneys, the HIPAA Privacy Guide is the most comprehensive HIPAA product on the market. Designed as an updateable quarterly publication, the Guide is also supported by an online site — hipaa.cch.com — for breaking news, updates and electronic versions of the latest compliance forms, policies and procedures.

The topics covered in the book include the following:

• Summary of the HIPAA privacy rule
• Overview of compliance manual objectives
• Relationship of HIPAA rule to state laws
• Practical glossary
• Implementation tools
• Office forms and documentation
• Customizable model policies and procedures
• Overview of requirements for unique identifiers
• Security and electronic signature standards

Along with the loose-leaf guide that contains everything necessary in one source, and the special CCH HIPAA Web site that provides the latest news, information, forms and an electronic alert system for new rulings, the HIPAA Privacy Guide is unique in offering information on state preemption. State preemption refers to the issue of state laws superceding national HIPAA regulations and is a key component of HIPAA compliance.

HIPAA Privacy Training is a written course for educating employees in how the HIPAA privacy rule applies to them and their organization, recognizing when they are dealing with protected health information and how they should handle it, and how they can contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of their organization’s health care delivery system. Designed with self-administered coursework, the book provides reproducible lessons for training employees along with an Administrator’s Guide with an answer key, test record forms for auditing purposes and individualized certificates of completion for trainees.

HIPAA Privacy Training offers the following course outline:

• Introduction to privacy, security and code sets
• Business associate liability
• Contracting with business associates
• HIPAA privacy rule and academic medical centers
• Patients’ rights to notice and additional protections
• The use of authorization
• Protected health information — patients’ rights
• Provider staffing and training requirements
• Privacy — handling protected information
• Privacy — penalties of noncompliance issues
• Privacy and security risk assessment

"Increasingly, hospitals are challenged to identify and manage compliance requirements," said Shea. "Hospitals can rely on CCH’s long history of providing authoritative health care information and use these HIPAA guides to manage their implementation process."

For more information or to order the HIPAA Privacy Guide and HIPAA Privacy Training, call 1-800-449-9525 or visit the CCH online store at www.health.cch.com/onlinestore. The price for the HIPAA Privacy Guide is $399; HIPAA Privacy Training is $499.

CCH INCORPORATED, founded in 1913, has served four generations of business professionals and their clients. The company produces approximately 700 print and electronic products for health care, securities, tax, legal, banking, human resources and small business markets. CCH is a Wolters Kluwer company. The CCH Web site can be accessed at cch.com. The CCH Health Care Web site can be accessed at health.cch.com.

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