Red Flag Rule Delayed

The FTC has announced that the Red Flag Rule that was to go into effect today has been delayed until August 1, 2009.

Originally the ruling was to begin November 1, 2008, but due to the objections of many medical associations and other organizations; the FTC had agreed to delay until May 1st. Then earlier today, the FTC announced this new delay with the statement “to give creditors and financial institutions more time to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs.” The FTC has further agreed to provide a template to assist entities with a low risk of identity theft comply with the law.

More on the rules can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/alerts/alt050.shtm
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/no-index/physician-resources/red-flags-rule.shtml

Red Flag Rule

Practices all over are struggling to get ready for the Red Flag Rule before the May 1st deadline. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/alerts/alt050.shtm
The basic premise of this rule is to be able to identify a red flag and show what are you going to do about it in your practice. There are many resources now available to help practices become complaint and many of these are free. We have listed just a few below. When looking at the resources, be sure that it will work in your practice.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/idtheft/bus23.shtm
www.mgma.com/redflagsrule
http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/practicemgt/regulatory-compliance/id-theft.html
http://www.aha.org/aha/advocacy/compliance/redflags.html

If you have any suggestions or other resources, please let us know. We look forward to hearing from you!