Transcript:
Michelle Smith: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. And welcome to episode five of cyBARR Chats, HITRUST edition. Due to popular demand today we’ll be discussing HITRUST, quality assurance, or QA, with HITRUST manager Swathi West. Swathi, would you please talk a little bit about the recent changes and HITRUST?
Swathi West: [00:00:18] Glad you asked Michelle, we’re getting a lot of questions about the new HITRUST reservation system as part of the HITRUST quality assurance. Before July, 2021, after an authorized assessor like BARR Advisory, complete the validated assessment,
the assessor will submit the completed assessment to high draws to conduct their quality assurance. And it would take eight to 10 week. Toremove that guesswork, HITRUST started a reservation system, which is a functionality within the HITRUST MyCSF platform, which will allow our organizations, our clients, to schedule when the quality assurance work will begin for that specific CSF validated assessment.
The best part is that assessed entities are, or organizations, will be able to, or have the ability to select when QA way begins for a HITRUST validated assessment up to a year. This will tremendously help organizations to plan according to their client commitments or needs. And it will also help external assessors like BARR with our internal scheduling as well.
So this is a great change, which would you know, benefit greatly in the whole after HITRUST certification process.
Michelle Smith: [00:01:43] And who does this change apply to?
Swathi West: [00:01:46] As of July 1st, 2021, all HITRUST CSF validated assessments that have not previously been submitted to HITRUST will be required to make a reservation prior to submission.
So this is, this is in progress. This is already happening. So if you did not submit the assessment for quality assurance, you will have to do the reservation before you submit the quality assurance to HITRUST.
Michelle Smith: [00:02:10] How can companies make a reservation?
Swathi West: [00:02:14] Through HITRUST myCSF platform, This is the platform we’ll use to do the validations and any
Add any caps or gaps. So this is the same platform I just made use of HITRUST platform will be used to make a reservation as well, but to make a reservation, the assessment should have a valid, validated assessment report credit at the time of the reservation. And, you know, we always talk about our client commitments and needs, and if we have to get.
the assessment or the report at a certain day, or, you know, certain timeline we could use this reservation system, or we could also expedite the QA process. So if the organizations wants the QA process expedited, they have to get an expedited credit. This is not the typical validated assessment credit we talked about earlier.
This is different. This is an expedited credit, and this will help the reservation, you know, to be expedited and get the QA process started or a little bit early. So talk about these different options with your assessor or HITRUST when you make a reservation.
Michelle Smith: [00:03:23] So what would happen if organizations are unable to submit the assessment by the reservation date?
Swathi West: [00:03:29] If organizations don’t submit the assessment on or before the submission date they selected initially when they did the first reservation, the reservation will be canceled by HITRUST and we will have to make a new reservation system to submit the assessment. Also, keep in mind if we can cancel the assessment 30 days or more prior to the submission date, we’re able to schedule a new reservation without incurring the change fee.
So anything that’s done within that 30 days, your initial submission date, we would incur a change.
Michelle Smith: [00:04:06] So you mentioned assessed entities would have the ability to select when QA begins. Does that mean organizations will have different options to choose from?
Swathi West: [00:04:16] Yes. After the organization select the date, they plan to submit the validated assessment to HITRUST,
based on that submission date, the reservation system will provide organizations with various community blocks to pick from. So a QA block is like a one week increment that contains the reservation slots, which are tied to the specific assessment. So depending on the submission date, you will have, there is option.
If one QA block doesn’t work, which is a week doesn’t work for the, for that reservation, you can pick another QA block.
Michelle Smith: [00:04:50] How long after the QA block in an organization expect to receive the draft report?
Swathi West: [00:04:56] One thing to keep in mind is that reservation does not present the date. HITRUST will finish the QA.
This is the most common question we get. Uh, we just submitted, you know, we’ve picked the career blocks. So is that when we get the draft report or the final report. Reservations within a QA block, just indicate that the week the HITRUST analyst will begin the QA procedures on that specific assessment.
So for, you know, if our assessments of typical QA workflow, external assessor organizations like BARR can expect to receive feedback from HITRUST after the QA block within seven to 10 business days. So currently we are seeing four to five weeks is what it takes to get a draft report out.
Michelle Smith: [00:05:41] Well, thank you. Swathi we will be discussing more changes and enhancements in the HITRUST CSF and our upcoming cyBARR Chats. Thank you all for joining and have a great day.
Swathi West: [00:05:52] Thank you.