Graham-Leach-Bailey (GLB) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

MCN is committed to claimant confidentiality in everything we do. We have addressed Personal Health Information (PHI) in the three primary areas of our business: employees/vendors, consultants and systems. The company is HIPPA compliant and continues to be one of the few Medical Judgment companies following the various State and Federal regulations regarding the handling of PHI.

MCN has trained and maintains it’s training with all of its employees. After training, each employee signed off on his/her receipt and reading of the training materials. Training was received both verbally and in written form. MCN has enacted internal policies assure compliance.

Our policy as communicated internally as is as follows:

As a Business Associate of insurance companies, MCN has access to, creates and discloses Protected Health Information (PHI), the disclosure of which is restricted by the HIPAA Privacy Rule to only what is necessary for health care physician consultants or Business Associates to perform their job. Specific examples of PHI include names, addresses, telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, member IDs, license numbers, birth dates, facial photos and biometric information (fingerprints, DNA, or retinal scans).

MCN enforces daily security measures to ensure HIPAA compliance. PHI should not be discussed or left in public spaces, and shredding bins must be used to dispose of PHI. Documents containing PHI may be transmitted outside of MCN using MCN’s encrypted email, unencrypted e-mail is screened before sending. Documents containing PHI may be faxed only to secure fax lines. They may also be mailed or delivered by an MCN-approved courier service. MCN employees encourage customers and consultants to use MCN eService and eChannel to access information necessary for completing their job.

Each MCN employee has signed a confidentiality statement, which includes the following:

MCN and its employees have an ethical and legal obligation to maintain full confidentiality regarding all information and related documents about patients or claimants evaluated at the company. Information about a patient or claimant will not be released to third parties other than the requesting customer, unless required by law, without a signed release from the patient or claimant. Casual conversation about individual patients must be avoided.

Periodically patient materials may be used for teaching or marketing purposes. In such circumstances, sufficient information will be changed so as to render the patient and customer unidentifiable.

Observation of exams by employees who are not medical professionals shall occur only with the written permission of the patient, or as requested by a physician as a chaperone. The permission slip shall be included with the patient file. Non-medical professionals may not observe the physical examination of a patient of a different gender if any undressing of the patient is required beyond exposure of an extremity.