Lawyers as Business Associates: Here There Be Dragons

If you are a lawyer acting serving a Covered Entity or Business Associate, or a Covered Entity or Business Associate retaining a lawyer as a Business Associate – if you aren’t sure, read this – you need to be aware of the ethical pitfalls and legal risks. In particular, a “standard” Business Associate Contract (is there one, really?) really isn’t appropriate and could create risks to confidentiality and privilege neither party really wants.

I’ve got a form I use with clients where I am a Business Associate, and it varies considerably from the standard to try to deal with these problems. Here’s a presentation I did for the Washington State Bar Association Health Law Section which explains Business Associate compliance for lawyers in more detail: Legal Risks and Ethical Problems for Lawyers under the HITECH Business Associate Rules

Categories

Tags

bill gates cert christiansen it blog cobiT coco contract law do it yourself ehr issues ehrs electronic health records electronic health recores electronic medical records eula hackers healthcare system healthy information networks hipaa hitech information security information security duty information security theory infosec integrated information security standard of care integreated information security it law it risk it security legal counsel medical records nasa dod hacker network security newbie lawyers opering system risk acceptance risk assessment risk management risk theory secuirty rule security incident response poilicy security legislation self help strategic information security ufo hacking vista windows vista

Worthwhile Links