The Latest Details on HIPAA Compliance Audits

Deven McGraw, deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights has announced that the department’s plans for initiating onsite audits is currently on hold and will remain so until more than 200 desk audits have been completed. An article over on Data Breach Today gives us great detail on where HIPAA compliance audits stand with their enforcing agency.

McGraw informed the HIMSS17 conference in February of the delay.

We have decided that it makes a lot more sense to [first] take a look at all we had in the desk audit process and even prepare the overarching report to the public about how those desk audits went.”

With the addition of Tom Price, Health and Human Services’ new secretary, it is unclear what the timeline for onsite audits looks like, however McGraw gives some good information about the current state of desk audits in her interview.

We’re interested in talking to him about the audit program and getting his input into how it’s going to be conducted, but we’re very far along with the desk audits and we’re eager to finish those up. In terms of the delay, it’s really about not taking on more than we can chew, frankly. It’s an enormous, resource-intensive effort, even with contractor help … and we want to make sure we do it right.”…

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View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P