To comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), we went out and a bought a paper shredder and paid a couple of teenagers $8 an hour to feed our medical records into the shredder - one page at a time. I cringed every time I passed this entirely inefficient operation. We've since hired a paper-shredding company to come to our facility once a month and empty the locked mailbox-sized containers spread around our offices into an automated shredder built onto to a truck. The documents are shredded right in our parking lot, and we're left with a receipt to show our accreditation surveyor. In addition to insurance verification forms, EOBs, ID bracelets and anything else with a patient's name on it, we also shred sensitive financial data. Monthly cost: $60.

Mary Ann Gellenbeck, RN, CNOR, CASC
Chief Operating Officer
Premiere Healthcare Partners
Cincinnati, Ohio
writeMail("mary.gellenbeck@docsgroup.com")