HIPAA, as it relates to health care providers, is a provision in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 that protects the security of medical records. The idea is to safeguard patient privacy and to prevent everyone who is not authorized to see a person’s medical records from doing so. Individuals are allowed greater access to their health records and control over who can see and make use of them. The Act established national standards that health care providers, insurance companies, and certain others, such as accounts, lawyers, and IT companies, must comply with.
The law tries to strike a balance between privacy and public health. Therefore, a number of entities are not required to follow the privacy and security provisions of the law, including employers, law enforcement, school districts, individual state agencies, such as child protective services, and many municipal offices.
Why is following HIPAA guidelines important?
To put the matter simply, the Act provides both civil and criminal penalties for those organizations that are found to be in violation of HIPAA. Moreover, those organizations that are in possession of medical records benefit by maintaining the trust of individuals to whom they belong. Patients are customers for health care providers and maintaining their good will is good business practice
For individuals, having control over their medical records prevents outside entities from exploiting them. Marketing research companies cannot take into account people with particular conditions to sell products.
How can HIPAA consulting services such as Serion Technology help with maintaining compliance?
HIPAA, like everything else that the federal government does, is complicated and is often confusing, Government regulators will, from time to time, issue new rules that entities covered by HIPAA must comply with by a certain date.
Compliance with the law is where HIPAA consulting services like Serion Technologies come in. Serion has developed a number of protocols that remove the possibility of human error, which is one of the leading causes of HIPAA violations. Tired or disgruntled employees can cause a problem that can cascade into a massive violation that can result in huge fines and unwanted publicity. The use of unencrypted data and the storage of sensitive data on local devices are the most prevalent ways that HIPAA can be violated.
If a violation does occur, Serion guidelines ensure that notification of the proper authorities and corrective action is undertaken in a timely matter.
If you are interested in obtaining the help of one of the most experienced HIPAA consulting services, contact Serion Technology.
