IFMA Online Guide March 29, 2010
Posted by unishred in UNISHRED.Tags: Advertising
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Have you heard about IFMA Online Guide? It’s the International Facilities Management’s primary source for quality vendors.
Unishred is now apart of the IFMA Online Guide to further increase knowledge of the shredding industry to facility managers.
Check us out. http://onlinefmguide.com/results.php?search_type=keyword&term=document+destruction
The American Reinvestment Act – HITECH and HIPAA February 24, 2010
Posted by unishred in Shredding, UNISHRED.Tags: ARRA, HIPPA, hitech, privacy, Shredding, the american reinvestment act, Unishred
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As you may know, The American Reinvestment Act (ARRA) amended the existing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This amendment, known as HITECH became fully effective on February 18, 2010 and significantly increases data protection liabilities for all health-related organizations.
Among other things, the new amendment affects health related organizations in the following ways:
- Any breach of confidentiality, such as improperly discarded documents or computers, must now be reported to the authorities, to patients and, when the breach involves more than 500 records, to local media outlets as well.
- The State Attorney General’s office is now responsible for the enforcement of HIPAA’s data security provision and the new law and fine limits have been increased by as much as 6000 percent.
- The newly required Business Associates agreements with data-related service providers must be modified to include the new requirement related to data breach notification. The vendor, in this case UNISHRED is now equally responsible for having the agreement in place.
The good news is that you are currently using UNISHRED, a AAA NAID certified destruction company. In addition to being more secure and less expensive than shredding in-house, our service provides an ongoing record of compliance.
After a visit to your offices, we’ll include for your review and signature both an updated Business Associate Agreement and Confidential Destruction Agreement. Both of these documents were developed by our industry Association, NAID and the Pelligroup’s John Montana, an internationally recognized information management and privacy compliance attorney. The Business Associate Agreement incorporates the requirements of the HIPAA privacy rule, the HIPAA Security Rule and the new provisions of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, as incorporated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
In addition, we have a complete compliance toolkit that we would be happy to share with you that includes policy, procedures, and implementation templates for health related organizations. Please feel free to call me and I will be happy to assist you in any way possible.
As always we thank you for allowing us to be of service.
Scott Boynton 954-537-4900
