The Federal Trade Commission has extended enforcement of the Red Flags Rule until June 1, 2010. Enforcement of the rule has been delayed previously as the FTC sought to adequately educate affected corporations and institutions. The Red Flags Rule impacts financial institutions and creditors subject to FTC jurisdiction. According to the Rule, created under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, covered entities must develop and implement written policies that aid in identity theft prevention.

In an effort to extend their Red Flags education campaign, the FTC has announced that enforcement on the Red Flags Rule will be delayed until November 1, 2009. This education campaign seeks to educate businesses on whether they are covered by the Rule, and if so, which steps to take in order to be compliant. Small businesses, in particular, had fumbled to grasp whether their risk-based programs were harmonious with the Red Flags Rule.

FTC announced on April 30, 2009 that the enforcement of the Red Flag Rule will be delayed until August 1, 2009.  This will allow time for creditors and financial institutions to create and fine tune their identity theft prevention programs.  A template has also been developed and will be available soon which will aid companies with a low risk of identity theft. 

More information is available from here: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/04/redflagsrule.shtm

On April 17, 2009, HHS issued guidance specifying the technologies and methodologies that render protected health information unusable, unreadable, or indecipherable to unauthorized individuals, as required by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act passed as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The guidance was developed through a joint effort by OCR, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and CMS.

On January 1, 2008, the newly-released Red Flags Rule stipulated that certain businesses are required to "spot and heed" the red flags for identity theft. Health care providers, in particular, should be vigilant in monitoring any suspicious activity that may indicate identity thieves have accessed stolen information including social security numbers, birth dates, account numbers, etc. in order to acquire accounts or services. Compliance to the Red Flags rule will be enforced starting on May 1, 2009. Is your organization covered?

With a May 1st deadline for compliance looming, the American Medical Association (AMA) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to suspend the application of the Red Flag Rules to physicians and publish a new rule so that physicians have an opportunity to provide comments. In a March 9 letter to the FTC, AMA Executive Vice President Michael D. Maves wrote that the AMA “strongly believes that the FTC did not provide physicians with an opportunity to review and comment on this Rule.”

On May 1, 2009, the FTC's six month suspension of the enforcement of the Red Flag Rules will be lifted.  Is your organization's Identity Theft Prevention Program in place?  If not, review the requirements at 16 CFR 681 on the MediRegs research portal.  If your organization has implemented a program - be sure it passes compliance muster by conducting the Red Flag Rules risk assessments developed by MediRegs for ComplyTrack.  Question sets include:

The “Identity Theft Red Flag Rules” (Rules) impose mandatory compliance with the regulations that require financial institutions or creditors to establish (1) protocols on discrepancies between an address requested in a consumer report and the address in the consumer reporting agency's file, and (2) policies and procedures to assess the validity of a change of address.

American Medical News Article on FTC Red Flag Rules

Amy Sorrel of AMNews wrote a recent article discussing the Red Flag Rules and the delayed enforcement: "New Federal Trade Commission regulations to combat identity theft have taken physicians and the health care industry by surprise and prompted the agency to delay enforcement from Nov. 1 to May 1, 2009."

New Red Flag Compliance Deadline - May 1, 2009!

Just this afternoon, the FTC announced that it would delay the deadline to comply with the new Red Flag Rules from November 1, 2008 to May 1, 2009.  The delay is to due to the confusion and uncertainty created in certain industries over whether the rules apply to them.  "Many entities also noted that because they generally are not required to comply with FTC rules in other contexts, they had not followed or even been aware of the rulemaking, and therefore learned of the requirements of