It would take days to list everything that you must do to be totally HIPAA compliant. But, with these 4 quick tips, you can definitely get your practice off to a great start in moving towards HIPAA Compliance.
First, you must establish written policies and procedures so that you and your staff can have a guideline to follow. There is a lot to HIPAA. Attempting to commit all of the information to memory would not only be time consuming, but also impossible. The key to the policies and procedures that you establish is that you and your staff has to abide but what is set forth. The only thing worse than having no policies at all, is to have policies and procedures that you are not following.
Second, you need to ensure that you have up to date BAA’s on file for all of your business associates. Should the Office for Civil Rights become aware that you are missing the necessary BAA’s, or that your agreements are not up to date, there could be lofty fines.
The third tip is that you and your staff must participate in regular, up to date training. OCR has not stated, specifically, how often training must be completed nor exactly what the training must include. The best way, maybe the only way to stay on top of the multitude of HIPAA requirements, is to complete annual HIPAA training.
https://youtu.be/xBQhjdGpB9EThe final tip, and maybe the most important, is that you should look into a reputable HIPAA compliant encryption service for both your email and data storage services. It is so important that you secure the safety and security of the email correspondence from your office as well as the sensitive data that you handle on a data basis. There may be nothing more detrimental to your practice’s bank account and reputation than the ramifications of a HIPAA Breach. The best way to ensure that you avoid this costly mistake is by seeking out an encryption service.