Effective immediately, Social Services Manager (DFS Budget and Planning), Wayne Osgoode, is the DFS Privacy Officer for our division including IM, CS, and RSB Programs.  Accordingly, when program policy instructs staff to submit information to the Privacy Officer, Wayne will be the point person for this information.  This would include requests from the community for Business Associate agreements and the DSS forms which require submission to the Division Privacy Officer.

Staff questions and inquiries surrounding the application of HIPAA program policy in IM, CS, and RSB should go through Supervisory channels to the designated Central Office Policy Staff, as follows:

Income Maintenance - Lee Waer, Social Services Manager
Children Services - Sally Howard, Assistant Deputy Director
Rehabilitation Services for Blind - Keith Roderick, Training Technician

Area offices should further designate an area representative to review IM and CS questions and inquiries from staff and to decide when to forward those inquiries on to the central office HIPAA policy designee.

Wayne Osgoode will work closely with staff in all three programs in his role as DFS Privacy Officer.  Our hope is this arrangement will lend itself to a division wide consistency.

Please feel free to contact Wayne and or your HIPAA policy designees if you are unsure of what to do in a given situation.  We realize it may take a little time to define these roles clearly as we continue to work together on HIPAA implementation.

Thank you for your time and cooperation in this matter.

DC/SH/sr