HIPAA and Your Checkout Counters: Is It a Match?

These days, HIPAA privacy regulations are stricter than ever before. You must guard patients' personal health information (PHI) strictly. That means you must implement your pharmacy design – customer areas, too – with this in mind.

Why HIPAA compliance is so important

• It's the law.
  Prior to September of 2013, security breaches had to be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services only if such a breach represented a significant threat to the person or persons affected. Now, you have to report every breach. Patients also have a right to access their own personal health information (PHI) and have the right to control who sees that information. Any other disclosures are disallowed except to health care professional(s) who need information for specific patients and for specific, allowable reasons.
  
  

• Your patients expect it.
  As an independent pharmacist, you are part of a very important medical community and team. Just as your patients can expect that any medical information they've shared with their doctors will stay with their doctors, so, too, should they be able to expect that any information they've shared with you will stay with you, not be "leaked" – even accidentally.
  
  

What defines a security breach?

No one is allowed to see – or hear – PHI without patients' express consent except for medical professionals in some cases, and only then for particular allowable reasons. This means you have to make sure that information stays away from unauthorized eyes and ears, including that of other patients and customers.

Unfortunately, you could unwittingly allow a security breach to happen if a patient or customer overhears you and an employee talking about another patient or customer – such as discussing a prescription fill or by leaving a label out on the pharmacy counter for a moment while you turn away to do something else.

The best way to avoid making any mistakes is to set up your pharmacy design with strict privacy features in place. One of the most important to pay attention to is behind your pharmacy counter.

How might your pharmacy counter be a problem in regard to HIPAA privacy regulations?

If you don't completely block off the work area behind the pharmacy counter from customers' view and hearing, they could unwittingly overhear a conversation or see something (like the aforementioned label) about a patient that they shouldn't.

You must make sure that you keep all private conversations and tasks involving private information out of customers' sight and hearing. The best way to do that is to keep allpatient information and phone conversations behind some type of privacy barrier.

There are several different types of privacy barriers. You can put up a privacy wall with windows between the pharmacy and sales area to discourage curious customers and protect patient information. The front shelving of the pharmacy fill counter can act as a privacy barrier. It must be over 54" high and a deep ledge top to protect the pharmacist filling prescriptions.

Another privacy barrier is to add plexi-glass panels to the ledge top. The pharmacist can still interact with customers, but will have a higher level of privacy while filling prescriptions. Customers should neither be able to see nor hear what goes on in the work area. This is important because although it's a relatively easy matter to block customers' view of your work area, they may still be able to hear conversations between you and employees, discussions between technicians in the workspace, etc., without a good pharmacy design. The privacy barriers should completely block the work area off from the customer area.

Protect your patients' privacy – and your own peace of mind and good standing in the community – with a pharmacy design that ensures patient health information privacy and compliance with HIPAA.