Supervisors narrowly reauthorize HIPAA compliance program

By a 3-2 vote, the Grundy County Board of Supervisors reauthorized an agreement with Carosh Compliance Solutions for trainings and software related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) during Monday morning’s regular meeting.
           
The program will cost the county around $8,000 annually, and according to county auditor Rhonda Deters and Jesse Huisman of the IT/GIS department, it mitigates the fine in the instance of a breach or violation. Huisman added that the annual fee would increase by $1,800 if the county doesn’t renew it before early January, and he and director Don Kampman are still working diligently to get everything to where it needs to be.
           
“I think it’s probably something that’s going to be there forever,” Huisman said. “We’re not there yet.”
           
Supervisor Harlyn Riekena, who eventually voted no, was the least enthusiastic of the bunch, opining that the board should have gone with Iowa State Association of Counties (ISAC) trainings and sarcastically commenting that such a program wasn’t warranted in a low population county like Grundy. 
 
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