The APA Practice Organization and APA Insurance Trust are teaming up to provide practitioners with information and tools that psychologists need to achieve HIPAA compliance. In an interview for Practitioner Focus, the executive directors for the two organizations – Russ Newman, Ph.D., J.D., of the APA Practice Organization, and Bruce Bennett, Ph.D., of the Insurance Trust — shared some thoughts about this collaboration and how it will benefit practitioners.

Q. How do you view the APA Insurance Trust’s partnership with the APA Practice Organization to assist practitioners with HIPAA compliance?

Dr. Newman: I think this is the perfect partnership. Both the Practice Organization and the Trust have a strong interest in assuring that practitioners are well able to be in compliance with HIPPA rules. And both organizations have valuable and complementary expertise that will enable us to join forces and do a better job of achieving the objective than either of us alone could do.

Dr. Bennett: We are very excited to work with the Practice Organization to become the HIPAA resource for our insureds and APA members. For some time, I have been looking for an issue that would allow the APA Insurance Trust to establish a working relationship with the APA Practice Organization. HIPAA is clearly the issue.

Q. What expertise will the Practice Organization and Trust contribute to this collaboration?

Dr. Newman: The Trust has developed a solid risk management program which reaches a large number of practitioners around the country. Being able to include in that program the necessary elements of HIPAA compliance will be extremely helpful for educating the practice community.

From the Practice Organization’s side of the partnership, our knowledge of the privacy rule dates back to preliminary work done by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on this issue. Through our federal advocacy activities, we were very involved in providing HHS with input about the privacy protections necessary in the mental health arena, and, I believe, reasonably successful in influencing the final outcome. We have also done considerable legal analysis on intricacies of the rule since it was issued in final form in April 2001.

The relationships we have built with the state psychological associations will also be an important part of the compliance process, since we will need to work closely with the SPAs to determine the interaction of the federal rule with each state’s existing laws.

Dr. Bennett: I believe that the Practice Organization will bring its advocacy and legal expertise to the table, and the Trust will contribute our expertise in insurance and risk management. The Trust has the only national risk management program available to practitioners. We have presented over 200 risk management workshops throughout the country, attended by over 10,000 psychologists, and we have fielded over 9,400 risk management calls in our Advocate 800 Risk Management Program.

I believe that every practitioner will need to become HIPAA compliant. The penalties for noncompliance can be severe. The privacy rule is complex and will require significant changes in the way psychologists deal with confidential information. As such, it has major implications for risk management and potential litigation against practitioners. Our insureds and APA members will benefit from the combined talents and knowledge of both the APA Practice Organization and the Trust.

Q. Dr. Bennett, the Trust has a particular interest in risk management and in helping practitioners manage their professional risk. From a risk management perspective, what’s particularly important for psychologists to keep in mind as they prepare to comply with HIPAA?

Dr. Bennett: The new privacy rule regulates how all health information, and especially confidential mental health information, is stored, used, and disclosed. If a practitioner is not in compliance with the rule, significant penalties may result, ranging from fines to possible imprisonment. Naturally, noncompliance may lead to licensing board complaints or malpractice litigation for breach of confidentiality. We at the Trust want our insureds to know the rules and to avoid these pitfalls. We have already revised our risk management workshops to address HIPAA issues.

Q. How will the products expected as part of the Insurance Trust-Practice Organization collaboration — such as model policies and procedures, customizable forms, and assessment tools to help members identify individual practice needs — help practitioners manage their risk?

Dr. Bennett: Our staff has worked with Dr. Newman and his staff to prepare the first co-branded communication, a primer entitled, “Getting Ready for HIPAA: What You Need to Know Now,” for Trust insureds and APA Practice Organization Special Assessment payers. We are currently reviewing a series of products that will be made available to our respective constituencies. At this time we are considering a CD-ROM. This product would appear to provide the greatest flexibility for practitioners who use computers. We have had meetings with our product design consultants regarding the format and content of the CD-ROM. Other products may also be made available.

Dr. Newman: Providing practitioners with the information necessary to be in compliance with the rule as well as giving practitioners the necessary “tools” to make compliance as painless as possible is the end that I envision for the collaboration.

Q. How will these resources be tailored to psychology practices and distinguished from other HIPAA compliance resources available through other sources?

Dr. Bennett: This is an easy one. The HIPAA privacy rule has some very specific protections for confidential mental health information, including special provisions for maintaining and disclosing such information. The major HIPAA compliance resources available today, such as books, pamphlets, and white papers, do not address these specific issues. Dr. Newman and I believe that our combined efforts will set the standard for psychologists and provide this information by leading-edge electronic technology.

Dr. Newman: Much of the information that I’ve seen previously which addresses HIPAA compliance issues seems more targeted to facilities, such as hospitals, health centers, or integrated delivery systems, rather than to individual practitioners. There are some unique applications of the rules to individual practitioners, and we will be spelling these out in our materials. Also, most of the HIPAA compliance information I’ve seen doesn’t do justice to the complexity of mental health records and information or the interplay of mental health and health information. This, of course, is where our focus will be.

Q. Do you see the product and information development as an evolutionary process, where helpful materials will be added gradually over time?

Dr. Bennett: It is definitely evolutionary. We expect changes in the privacy rule over time, especially as practitioners and organizations gain experience with the requirements. We will monitor these changes and modify our product line as needed. Such modifications may well be available over the Internet.

Dr. Newman: On one level, there is a lot of detail and complexity to the privacy rule that can be rather daunting if attempting to digest it in a “single bite.” On another level, though, the rule is rather straightforward and logical if you take it a step at a time. We’re working to provide this information to the practice community a step at a time, so it can be readily incorporate, and in time to meet the compliance deadline.

It is also important to mention that elements of the rule are likely to be revised by HHS along the way. We will be providing any of these changes as well to practitioners.