Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your practice

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Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your
practice
As a physician, you start growing in your
practice you will realize that you need to
outsource part or all your billing routine tasks
to be more productive and efficient at
work. WHAT IS HIPAA? Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act of
1996 is a law that intends to protect the privacy
of patient information. It establishes national
standards for processing electronic healthcare
transactions and requires healthcare
organizations to implement these. Why your
practice should be HIPAA-COMPLIANT? Non-compliant
of HIPAA regulations can cause big amount of
fines to your medical practice and the Medical
Billing Service Company working with you. This
also affects the reputation of you and
outsourcing medical billing company also it can
cost thousands of dollars.
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Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your
practice

• First step to take to becoming HIPAA compliant is
  to have a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) in
  place. BAA need to be submitted to all your
  vendors such as medical billing service company.
  This will help your practice to be updated HIPAA
  compliant practice. As soon as all parties sign
  the BAA agreement they are liable to follow all
  HIPAA compliance rules and regulations. If they
  fail to do so then they are subject to civil and
  criminal penalties for action not authorized in
  your BAA.
• Recently in one of the USA state one facility
  violated HIPAA compliance. A nursing home
  patients physician texted the patients lab
  reports to nurse. Both the physician and nurse
  were the only authorized medical professionals to
  see the message. The centers of Medicare and
  Medicaid Services found the residential facility
  to be violation. They used text message for the
  communication instead of secure method of
  communication.
• Please find below is the Compliance Checklist
  (Ref ComplianceHelper.com)
• Have you formally designated a person(s) or
  position(s) as your organizations privacy and
  security officer?
• Do you have documented privacy and information
  security policies and procedures?

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Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your
practice

• Have they been reviewed and updated, where
  appropriate, in the past 12 months?
• Have the privacy and information security
  policies and procedures been communicated to all
  personnel, and made available for them to review
  at any time?
• Do you provide regular training and ongoing
  awareness communications for information security
  and privacy for all your workers?
• Have you done a formal information security risk
  assessment in the last 12 months?
• Do you regularly make backups of business
  information, and have documented
  disaster recovery and business continuity plans?
• Do you require all types of sensitive
  information, including personal information
  and health information, to be encrypted when it
  is sent through public networks and when it
  is stored on mobile computers and mobile storage
  devices?

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Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your
practice

• Have you implemented controls to limit physical
  access to all devices and areas
• where PHI is accessed or stored?
• Do you limit access to PHI to only those who
  need it to fulfill their job responsibilities?
• Have you implemented technical security controls
  to protect against unauthorized
• access to electronic PHI?
• Have you identified all your business associates
  (including subcontractors if you are
• a BA) and ensured they have signed a BA
  agreement and follow all HIPAA requirements?
• Do you require information, in all forms, to be
  disposed of using secure methods?
• Do you have a documented breach response and
  notification plan, and a team to
• support the plan?
• If you are a covered entity (CE), do you
  provide a Notice of Privacy Practices (NPP)
• that meets all HIPAA requirements in
  compliance with the Omnibus Rule changes?

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Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your
practice

• Have you established processes to document and
  account for disclosures of PHI?
• (Questions developed by Rebecca Herold, CIPM,
  CISSP, CIPP/US, CIPP/IT, CISM, CISA, FLMI CEO,
  The Privacy Professor http//www.privacyguidance.
  com )
• If you answered NO to any of these questions
  you are not in compliance with HIPAA and are at
  risk of fines and other penalties. It is
  important to know that a business partner or
  regulatory agency can ask you, at any time, to
  provide proof that you are HIPAA compliant.
• If you need to bring your medical practice up to
  HIPAAs standards, please contact
  MedicalBillersandCoders.com today through email
  info_at_medicalbillersandcoders.com or reach us at
  our toll free number [phone] and
  well ensure that your medical practice is HIPAA
  compliant.