The HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA Compliance is a Federal government-based mandated standard medical and healthcare entities must meet, which is designed to protect the rights and privacy of patients.

The HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) is established by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and sets forth guidelines for how industries and professionals in the medical and healthcare fields save, access, share or distribute electronic protected healthcare information, or (ePHI).

There are several facets of the guideline. One is Control Access. Affected industries must ensure access to sensitive medical information is limited to as few people as possible, those who access such information are properly tracked and logged and that their establishment have contingency plans in place which ensure medical information can be accessed in the event the operating system goes down. Another expectation of the guideline is Audit Control. Industries who need to maintain HIPAA compliance checklist must ensure medical records are easily accessible. Entities that are HIPAA Compliant will also maintain the integrity of their system, which demands safeguards be in place to prevent sensitive information from being altered or destroyed and that identities of anyone who requests access to such records be established before it is released. Security is another aspect of HIPAA compliance. Those who meet the standard will employ security measures that protect ePHI information from being observed by unauthorized persons during any type of electronic transfer.

Who Needs To Be HIPAA Compliant?

The HHS separates compliance into two categories: Covered Entities and Business Associates. Covered Entities are companies are individuals who directly operate in the medical or healthcare industries and include physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, pharmacies, healthcare companies, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), Medicare and Medicaid. The other category is classified as Business Associates. This group comprises any business or establishment, which performs a specific task for a Covered Entity, which might expose them to ePHI information. Internet providers, banks, accountants and attorneys fit this category.

Read More

HIPAA Risk Assessment Options

If you work in the healthcare or business industry, you’re probably familiar with HIPAA. HIPAA is a set of federal guidelines set forth to ensure healthcare organizations and their technological associates meet a specific set of standards in regards to how they protect and handle their patients’ personal health information. Many businesses also ascribe to the same rules for their clients.

One of the factors that make HIPAA so successful is the risk assessment portion, which mandates that HIPAA compliance consist of not only putting strict security measures in place to protect sensitive information, but also testing those security measures. Testing HIPAA security measures involves looking for potential loopholes or weak spots in the protection of personal health information, which could be thwarted by hackers, malware, and so on. Without a regular, thorough risk assessment, it would be impossible for an organization to be sure their patients’ or clients’ information is as highly protected as possible.

However, assessing the risk is not all HIPAA compliance requires. According to section 164.308 of the HIPAA bylaws, compliance requires that organizations also “implement security measures sufficient to reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate level…” In short, any problems the risk assessment finds need to be immediately resolved and further assessed to be certain the fixes hold up. HIPAA’s guidelines do not specify how exactly risk assessment and repair must be performed, as that is up to the individual organization to decide the most effective method for them. What is specified is that doing the assessment and repair in some form must be adhered to the best capability of each HIPAA-compliant organization.

Choosing how to manage the risk assessment and repair or remediation portion of HIPAA can be complex for any organization due to the number of options available and the generalized nature of HIPAA guidelines. One of the newest and strongest options is software designed with the goal of compliance to this section of the HIPAA laws in mind. The software follows a simple process of testing the organization’s security and either repairs the problems or gives guidelines about the next steps the organization should take to make sure they can become HIPAA compliant or maintain current HIPAA compliance. These software programs are ideal because they are designed by leading experts in technology whose specialty is security. This knowledge allows for the design of software that is truly exceptional in terms of helping an organization be certain any risks can be modified and safeguarded to protect sensitive information now and in the future.

There are many companies who design leading edge software to help organizations become HIPAA compliant. The ideal company has excellent reviews and holds a HIPAA Seal of Compliance from the HIPAA Compliancy Group.

Read More