A Comprehensive Overview of HIPAA Compliance

Here is how Genius Fixers has explained HIPAA compliance, alongside its role in this regard.

Demystifying HIPAA Compliance

The terminology we are elucidating today comprises two words: HIPAA and compliance. The first one is an abbreviation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. For simplification, this is a principle that aims to guard patients’ private data. It is core US law.

Privacy Rule

These are nationwide regulations linked to the safety of people’s medical files or particulars. This instruction makes sure that they are not available to uncredentialled people. The sort of data that requires these efforts is also recognized as protected health information or PHI. Besides, it can have various forms, encompassing verbal, print, and electronic. 

Another objective of this formal aspect is to strike a balance between concealment and flow to guarantee the caliber of health-related purposes. Nonetheless, we will briefly state the connection of Genius Fixers services later in our content.

Security Rule

This policy concentrates mainly on ePHI, or electronic protected health information. Hence, this is the content stored on computers or moved with the assistance of the internet. The goal is to confirm its preservation, precision, and secrecy. Also, it is indispensable to shield ePHI from cyber threats, like hacking. 

For this purpose, the relevant entities have to focus on tasks like encryption, evaluation procedures, and backup and recovery. Strictly speaking, it is the attempts, such as keeping an eye on the access to this record, its encryption at rest as well as in transit, and preserving its copies that assure business continuity. 

Breach Notification Rule

Upon the occurrence of a breach, the businesses have to communicate with the parties concerned whose data has become the target. Alternatively, it is also critical to notify the Department of Health and Human Services, known as HHS, as well. Another notable approach we found out is about letting the media know.

Furthermore, the malicious activity becomes reportable when the backup system encounters the attack. Nonetheless, if this involves solely the hacking of encrypted data and not its decryption key, then this issue is not notifiable. 

Upsides

  • If businesses highly value the concealment of details about their patients, the latter will surely depend on them more, resulting in enhanced reliance.
  • Not complying with the policies in question means monetary punishments. Hence, conformity is a better approach for your budget.
  • This also stimulates the accuracy and completion of relevant information, a notable step towards maintaining its reliability.
  • The patients will definitely prefer companies that appreciate the worth of relevant standards and abide by them as well. Therefore, this is a way to gain a competitive advantage. 
  • Education concerning safeguarding and privacy is indispensable for medical business individuals. Hence, they have advanced knowledge and know the consequences of shielding private data.

Limitations

  • It needs specific training and time-consuming efforts that can deviate the teams from the main tasks. 
  • This is somehow disadvantageous to the budget. Numerous elements, including inspection and education, demand a massive amount of money. 
  • Personnel in a medical company must know HIPAA and the weight of the adherence. Otherwise, everyone will have a distinctive definition in mind. 
  • There is a possibility that understanding the notifications will become a challenge for the patients. They might find it hard to fill out the consent forms.
  • Regardless of its worth, it is also an addition to the administrative tasks of these kinds of companies. Therefore, obeying these regulations can become stressful.

How Does Genius Fixers Commit to HIPAA to Protect Patient Data?

We surely have a role. For instance, we showcase strictness in multi-factor authentication so that the clients can easily extract backups. Moreover, we frequently perform security audits and form recovery plans to ensure that our medical clients do not face any inconvenience in the time of a cyberattack when accessing sensitive data.

In order to reduce the risk of breaches, we make good use of proactive threat monitoring, which further assists in analysis if an attack takes place. Besides, as we always sign the business associate agreement or BAA, it is our team’s duty to let you know about the mishap concerning your sensitive details.

Seven-Year Data Retention & Cloud Backup

There is a seven-year retention period for conformity documents instead of the conventional six years. Besides, the same duration is for the provision of cloud backup solutions for safe and sound storage of our clients’ patient data.

Wrapping Up

The article for today expressed the fundamentals of HIPAA observance alongside its types of instructions, for example, privacy, security, and breach notification. Our readers were fortunate enough to grasp our contribution to the relevant submission, too.

FAQs

1: What does HIPAA compliance mean?

HIPAA presents regulations for shielding information related to sick people, which is vital for healthcare associations. Moreover, the latter has to execute measures and set the seal on the absence of intrusion or utilization of patients’ data without their consent.

2: Is this fulfillment really crucial for MSPs or managed service providers?

If MSPs are collaborating with medical personnel, security approaches of this nature are vital for them to verify the well-being of information. Therefore, the aforementioned policies are applicable to managed service providers. If they fail to do so, they can encounter punishments.

3: Is there any relation between Genius Fixers and HIPAA conformity?

We are an MSP, and you know already that submission is highly imperative for firms like ours. Also, this is definitely helpful in maintaining client trust. Nevertheless, to be specific about how advantageous we are for our medical clients, we offer a seven-year cloud backup solution in conjunction with encrypted storage and disaster recovery plans. You can chat with Genius Fixers at your convenience to learn more about this association.