Curiosity. Malice. Efficiency. Rivalry. To be helpful. To be hurtful. Because they have a brief lapse of judgment. Because they have a plan to steal thousands of identities and sell them on the Internet. The reasons why staff members snoop in patient records are as var-ied as the employees themselves.

Coding and billing staff members don’t have much face-to-face interaction with patients, but their constant access to medical records and PHI makes them susceptible to HIPAA violations without proper training. So resist the urge to skimp on HIPAA training for these important HIM staff members.

Editor’s note: Brandt is president of Brandt & Associates, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm in Bellaire, TX. She is a nationally recognized expert on patient privacy, information security, and regulatory compliance, and her publications provided some of the basis for HIPAA’s privacy regulations. She is also the former director of policy and research for the American Health Information Management Association.