At the annual meeting of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT yesterday, Leon Rodriguez, the director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR), said he "fully expects" the government will institute a permanent HIPAA compliance audit program after the current pilot program wraps up in 2012, GovInfoSecurity reports. The agency will conduct 150 audits over the next 11 months. Rodriguez said the audits are intended to help entities improve compliance with HIPAA. During his presentation, he also addressed the call by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) for the OCR to "hurry up" and release its final rules for HIPAA modifications. "We indeed are hurrying up," Rodriguez said.
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