Accounting of Disclosures
Doesn’t Have to Be a Problem

RecordJacket.com™ can help your organization comply with one of HIPAA's most challenging requirements: providing to a patient a proper Accounting of Disclosures ("AOD") of protected health information ("PHI").

HIPAA requires covered entities to provide to a patient who requests it an AOD identifying and describing what PHI regarding the patient the covered entity disclosed, and to whom, for a period up to six years prior to the date of the request. While there are certain important exceptions to the AOD requirement - including exceptions for disclosures involving treatment, payment, or operations and disclosures authorized by patients - the rule is broad and applies to all individuals and departments within a covered entity. That breadth can cause complications for all providers, especially large clinics and hospitals.

The requirement covers everything from disclosures to administrative agencies by a medical records department to disclosures that emergency rooms are required to make to public health authorities. The recording and tracking processes for these disclosures, particularly of those made outside medical records departments, are often incomplete. Coordination among departments is the exception rather than the rule.

Using RecordJacket.com™, which can track all releases from a covered entity, helps in a big way. For example, multiple users in different parts of an organization can have access that allows them to document required disclosure events. Because each password is assigned to a specific user role, access can be granted without fear that a user will see PHI that he or she is not entitled to see.

Here are some real-life examples. An ER unit clerk could be given access to RecordJacket.com™ solely to document disclosures such as notifications to social service agencies in cases of suspected child abuse-events which by law must be recorded, tracked, and reported. The infection control department could be given access to the system to document disclosures to public health agencies on infectious diseases or other required public health disclosures. Outpatient departments that keep their own patient specific records could also use RecordJacket.com™ to document requests for and the release of PHI to third parties.

All disclosures processed through RecordJacket.com™ can be captured, and medical records that are to be released can be scanned into the system. A comprehensive record of each release is maintained, including digital copies of all records and requesting documents that can later be used to prove what was actually released.

RecordJacket.com™ provides the first truly comprehensive solution to recording and tracking all types of releases.