HHS blasts CMS's HIPAA enforcement program

Almost a year ago I became interested in measuring the level of HIPAA compliance among dentists in the nation, so I performed an informal survey as a pilot study to see how well dentists are following the Rule. The results were posted on “The Executive-Post” in September. (I tried to provide a link but was prevented from doing so by this website. One can find the article by googlesearching “Darrell Pruitt, HIPAA study.” It is the first hit.)

Here is the abstract:
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A Survey of Dentists [Pilot Study]
By Darrell Pruitt; DDS

A survey of 18 dentists was performed using the Internet as a platform. The volunteer dentists’ anonymity was guaranteed. The dentists were presented with ten HIPAA compliancy requirements followed by a series of questions concerning their compliancy as well as the importance of the requirements in dental practices.

The range of compliancy was found to be from 0% for the requirement of a written workstation policy to 88% for that of password security. The average was 49%, meaning that less than half of the requirements are being respected by the dentists in this sample.

Frustration with the tenets of the mandate, as well as open defiance is evident by the written responses. In addition, it appears that a dentist’s likelihood of satisfying a requirement is related to the dentist’s perceived importance of the requirement.

Even though this is a limited pilot study, there is convincing evidence that more thorough investigation concerning the cost and benefits of the requirements need to be performed before enforcement of the HIPAA mandate is considered for the nation’s dental practices.
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What would happen if it were discovered that HIPAA is the grandest fraudulent scheme ever - and it is still being perpetrated by entrepreneurs, bureaucrats and politicians for selfish gain? Would the nation’s leaders admit to a dozen years of egregious folly? Not before tomorrow. Darrell K. Pruitt DDS

This is precisely why so many of us DON'T wish to give our SSN on medical records, as a password for insurance, etc. And why we DON'T want a National ID. We can't trust companies to protect our personal information and are certainly even less trusting of our understaffed and underfunded government agencies. More and more of us are becoming identity theft victims which is one horrific personal nightmare. HIPAA needs to work!