HIPAA Compliance Explained

The U.S. Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

(HIPAA) before being signed into law by then-President Clinton. The legislation was enacted primarily to help more Americans gain access to health insurance and ensure employees would not lose their health insurance if they changed jobs. While the act was primarily for the insurance industry, it also allowed HHS to set standards for protecting identifiable health information.

With the latest updates, HHS put in place a final Omnibus rule: to implement a number of provisions to strengthen the privacy and security protections for health information established under HIPAA, finalizing the Breach Notification Rule.

The Threat of PHI Data Leaks

In the years since the legislation's passing, HIPAA compliance has grown in importance. Health care providers are increasingly adopting computerized operations to streamline processes, such as computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems, electronic health records (EHR), and radiology, pharmacy, and laboratory systems.

While these electronic methods provide increased efficiency and mobility, they also drastically increase healthcare data security risks, making HIPAA compliance more critical than ever.

As the regulatory and compliance landscape becomes increasingly complex, healthcare facilities must organize, manage, and maintain vast amounts of information - information valuable to cybercriminals, hackers, and other unscrupulous actors.

The Importance of HIPAA Compliance

In 2021, there were 50,406,838 individuals affected by healthcare data breaches, a 24% increase from the previous year. Regrettably, a lack of HIPAA compliance training is a leading cause of data breaches. Privacy and security training is the best way to avoid data breaches and fines for these types of violations.

The best HIPAA compliance programs recognize that data doesn't lose itself. It's exposed through people—people who are negligent, malicious, or compromised by an outside attacker. That is why effective compliance is people-centric, focusing on how healthcare professionals can inadvertently or purposely expose patient data. Healthcare providers need to share data securely to ensure the best possible patient care.

Best Practices For HIPAA Compliance:

● Establish and adopt written policies and procedures to promote the organization's commitment to the Privacy & Security Standards.

● Designate an individual (or two) to serve as a Privacy and Security Officer who monitors compliance efforts and enforces the Privacy and Security standards.

● Mandatory regular ongoing Privacy and Security training is one of the simplest ways to avoid a violation. Practices should provide ongoing, up-to-date training on the handling of PHI for all employees.

● Develop effective lines of communication across departments.

● Conduct an annual Security Risk Assessment (SRA)

● Enforce standards through well-publicized disciplinary guidelines.

● Implement safeguards such as password protected authorization, individual logins and two-factor authentication (strongly recommended) to access patient-specific information on all computers, laptops, and devices.

●When not in use, computer programs containing patient information should be logged out of and closed. Never share passwords between employees.

● Ensure all computers have updated anti-virus software installed. This will help keep a practice guarded against malicious software.

● Utilize email encryption when emailing PHI. If fax is still used, be sure to utilize a cover sheet with an appropriate disclaimer.

●Make sure employees are aware that using social media to share patient information is considered a violation of HIPAA law.

●If patient information is being accessed from at home, ensure all home computers and laptops are password protected. Additional safeguards may be needed.

●Make sure backups are properly maintained, whether onsite or in the cloud.

●Respond promptly to detected offences and take necessary corrective action to mitigate damages.

According to HHS, “the OCR continues to identify pools of covered entities and business associates that represent a wide range of health care providers, health plans, health care clearinghouses and business associates.

By looking at a broad spectrum of audit candidates, OCR can better assess HIPAA compliance across the industry – factoring in size, types and operations of potential auditees.”

Patients entrust their data to healthcare organizations, and these organizations have an ethical and moral responsibility to take care of their protected health information.

Contact us for a free consultation.

References: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/compliance-enforcement/audit/index.html#:~:text=For%20this%20phase%20of%20the,care%20clearinghouses%20and%20business%20associates.