Healthcare institutions and their business connections must follow HIPAA laws or face legal fines. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, enacts in 1996 but updates multiple times in response to the changing technology milieu.
With this in mind, how can you ensure that everyone involves, from mobile app developers to hosting? Cloud service providers, entirely compliant with all aspects of the law?
Follow these seven steps to have a better understanding of how to assure compliance and reduce the risk of a breach.
1. Develop a Cohesive Privacy Policy
Adopt and put into action a comprehensive security policy. Ensure that all staff properly trains on these policies. Conduct periodic quality assurance inspections to ensure that follows You should also make this training mandatory for all third-party providers.
Creating these consistent HIPAA privacy standards will provide the groundwork for high-quality patient care and operational success. These regulations should establish expectations, direct everyday activities, and eliminate errors.
Because of the complexities of HIPAA standards, it can be difficult to determine exactly what to capture. A decent rule of thumb is to include anything related to patient health information (PHI).
Review it
This privacy policy evaluates on a regular basis, and any modifications should be properly recorded and disclosed to workers. “I didn’t know,” unfortunately, is not an acceptable justification. You may track your progress by examining your privacy policy on a regular basis. This will also aid in determining the shape of your future policy.
2- Hire a Dedicated Security Staff
HIPAA is federal legislation that necessitates having staff members solely committed to compliance process. You may need to recruit one or more people to be in charge of enforcing policies and providing patient information training.
- Establishing, administering, and enforcing Security Rule protections and any OCR standards
- Managing access restrictions, business continuity, disaster recovery, and incident response
- Conducting risk assessments and assisting with third-party audits, particularly of business associates and third-party providers
- Investigating any data breaches and resolving any issues by establishing future containment measures
- Integrating IT security and HIPAA compliance into the business strategy of the firm
3. Have an Internal Auditing Process
Make a habit of doing regular risk assessments to evaluate. Assess the possibility of a breach and take remedial action as needed. Put your policies and processes to the test. Require your business partners to adopt a similar procedure.
Review
While HIPAA does not specify a minimum number of internal audits, quarterly inspections are an excellent place to start. Record the findings of your internal audits as well as any adjustments that need to be made to your rules of HIPPA and processes. Create and carry out a strategy to evaluate and change your policies and procedures in light of the findings of your internal audit.
4. Stipulate Specific Email Policies
Email, in general, is not a secure mode of communication. HIPAA does not prohibit the use of email to communicate patient information. However, you must take efforts to guarantee that your company email encrypts and that you can prove it.
5. Establish Explicit Training Protocols
You should not only teach all workers and vendors on HIPAA-related security measures but also create security-related refresher courses and continuing education. The initial expenditure will far surpass the expense of a prospective breach. which might result in legal, financial, and reputational consequences for your company. Document the completion of training by your workers and vendors.
6- Understand Breach Notification Requirements
The wording covering the procedures you must take in the event of a data breach is quite detailed. You must also adhere to the specified process. Read the Breach Notification Rule thoroughly; doing so will help you understand what constitutes a breach. what precautions you may take to avoid a breach, and even what documents you need to justify in order to minimise business effect.
7. Secure Relationships with Business Associates
Under HIPAA, all of your vendors and business associates must follow all of the statute’s requirements. Take extra efforts to ensure that your business colleagues are HIPAA compliant and adhere to relevant processes. Maintain paperwork that proves their compliance and obligates them to follow training and auditing processes as needed.
Review
The Privacy Rule requires a covered entity to acquire adequate assurances from its business partner that the business associate will correctly secure the protected health information that the covered entity receives or develops on its behalf. Satisfactory guarantees documents in writing, whether in the form of a contract or other arrangement between the covered entity and the business associate.
