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RED FLAG AND HIPAA COMPLIANCE
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Ken,
    In your Alarm Sales Affiliate agreement there is section:
    Red Flag and HIPAA Compliance.  Company and Affiliate agree that any violation by Affiliate of statutes and regulations, including the Red Flags Rule, False Claims Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Health Information Technology for Economic Clinical Health Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, and such other statutes or regulations which may, from time to time, be enacted and implemented, may cause irreparable harm to Company.  Accordingly, the parties agree that, contemporaneous herewith, they will execute a Business Associate Agreement which shall require Affiliate to implement policies and procedures to identify, prevent and mitigate the risk of identity theft and/or the disclosure of individually identifiable health information. 
    How does this section apply to me (the alarm company)? Also, It references a "business associate agreement" what exactly is this agreement?
thanks,
DB
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ANSWER
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    The Sales Affiliate Agreement is for your 1099 sales help.  
    This pertains to alarm companies that acquire medical information, typically for PERS monitoring.  Your inquiry promptly me to modify the Sales Affiliate Agreement by deleting reference to a Business Associate Agreement and requiring in its place that the affiliate create and implement its own Red Flag and HIPAA Compliance plan.  You can get the compliance documents from our Health Care Department.  Contact Jennifer Kirschenbaum, Esq at Jennifer@Kirschenbaumesq.com or 516 747 6700 x 302.
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DIFFICULT SUB AND DISCONNECT LETTER FROM DEC 25, 2014 ARTICLE
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Ken,
    I have a customer similar to the one described by this dealer.  Exceptionally difficult that I just want to be done with.  He is currently late with payment as he always is.  I want to declare him in default or breach of contract and be done with him.  We use your contracts so I assume that I can send him a letter stating payment is due by “date” or he will be terminated.
    You mention in this post that the dealer should provide him all codes and passwords.  Why?  We place a $450 value on programming per your contract; shouldn’t that be paid before codes and passwords are released?  There are also outstanding invoices that I would want to be paid before I released any codes.  My point is the customer is not likely to pay the $450 and the outstanding invoices either once I go down this road.  I’m willing to accept that, knowing that he will have to pay someone else to replace his current system because they can’t get past the installer code.  He has cost me a good deal of money over the course of our business together, it will be nice for him to see how much money he has saved over the years from me once he has to pay a different company.  I don’t want to part with codes and passwords until all outstanding invoices are paid.  Will that get me in trouble?
Lee
AVS, Inc.
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ANSWER
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    Your situation is different than the diffcult subscriber described in the Dec 25 2014 article.  For that reason the advice there doesn't apply here.  You mention that I said give the sub the codes.  Here is what I wrote:
    " If you decide to terminate a subscriber without legal cause be sure to notify the subscriber that service will terminate at a particular time, giving the subscriber enough time to replace your service, whether it's monitoring or service or whatever you're providing.  You should release all codes and passwords because if you decide to breach the agreement you will be liable for the difference between what you agreed to charge and what the subscriber had to pay to replace your service.  You don't want to increase that expense by refusing to provide the codes."
      In that case however the alarm company was going to terminate for NO CAUSE.  You have cause.  Your subscriber is in default.  
    You are using one of my Standard Form Agreements [make sure you update].  Thus your assumption that you need to give notice of last opportunity to pay is wrong.  You don't have to provide that opprortunity.  Your subscriber is in default and in some sense you are glad about that.  All you need do is terminate the subscriber.  No opportunity to cure the default in payment; it's over.  It's good bye Mr. Pain in the All Subscriber.  Your letter is "you are in default, we have decided to terminate your services as of January 31, 2015 at 3 PM.  Your monitoring will be terminated at that time."  End of letter unless you also you also want to say, "see you in court".  If you have the latest and greatest Standard Form All in One Agreement you own the programming and you don't have to release it. [some jurisdictions may require you to release it].  If the sub owns the system make sure they can continue to turn it on or off for intrusion.  If you can access the panel remotely you can put message on keypad "no monitoring"
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