Three ways to prevent HIPAA violations in a medical office

Protected health information (PHI) is defined and subject to compliance rules for healthcare providers under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The implications of non-compliance are severe because compromised PHI puts patients at a higher risk of identity theft and can have far-reaching career repercussions for those with questionable medical histories.

Of course, HIPAA settlements ranging from $50,000 to millions of dollars have unpleasant repercussions for healthcare organizations as well. Recent settlements in two of these instances totaled $4.8 million for New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and $800,000 for Parkview Health System, Inc. In both of these instances, healthcare companies stored or disposed of PHI using subpar security standards, clearly in violation of HIPAA.

Healthcare organizations can take use of HIPAA regulations as a chance to proactively lower the likelihood of such a breach and set a rigorous standard of patient privacy and security rather than hope their organization avoids one.

About HIPAA Compliance

The United States Congress passed HIPAA in 1996. The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule requiring businesses to provide full disclosure to patients and federal authorities was established by the 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), but it wasn’t until then that it attracted much notice.

The primary responsibilities of HIPAA and HITECH are to identify PHI management and access controls, monitor access to data, track administrative operations and configuration changes, and handle and encrypt data to safeguard against security breaches. Due to the fact that every healthcare company maintains a separate set of hardware and software, achieving compliance with each component of the HIPAA Security Rule will differ depending on the organizational policies, the configuration of the systems, and the nature of the healthcare business.

Advice on How to Stay HIPAA Compliant

Healthcare organizations must set up procedures and safeguards to protect the confidentiality and integrity of patient PHI in order to comply with HIPAA regulations. For administrative and management staff alike, this can be a challenging and stressful duty in the increasingly frantic hospital environment.

The following advice is extremely important for good HIPAA compliance since firms must demonstrate that they utilize trustworthy access control to protect PHI:

Put visibility first

For firms to retain a high level of visibility, audit reports are a need. In addition to enabling improved daily visibility and monitoring and enabling you to demonstrate your compliance, an active auditing system will also enable prompt reporting to HIPAA in the event of a suspected breach or security event.

Encourage all personnel to take security seriously

In a hospital, security is handled on a person-by-person basis. Every employee needs to get training on PHI, how to handle information, and the significance of doing so responsibly. To reduce risk from the top to the bottom of your firm, implement strict policies across your IT infrastructure.

Implementation of new regulations

Organizations frequently develop new training and practices after being caught up in the news cycle of a significant breach, only to gradually let those measures lapse over time. Raise security from an IT priority to an organizational one by pledging to adhere to these compliance principles. It’s true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in the case of HIPAA security breaches.

Important rules for preserving the security of susceptible PHI are provided by HIPAA compliance. Click here for additional details on how to adopt HIPAA compliance solutions for healthcare facilities.

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