The Best Tips to Keep Your HIPAA Compliance on Track

“HIPAA Compliance" is not just a fancy certification or term that healthcare businesses can randomly display on their websites. For the prevention of data breaches, healthcare organizations are legally required to educate their staff and employees about SOPs for handling patient data and sensitive medical records.

HIPAA sets strict guidelines and rules to safeguard unauthorized sharing and access to sensitive data, personal information, medical history, and other important details. Once you have acquired HIPAA compliance, the job is not done. It is not a one-time achievement but an ongoing process.

Importance of Maintaining HIPAA Compliance

Keeping your compliance on track is equally important for supporting organizations, business associates, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders. Failing to do so can result in heavy penalties and fines from the authorities.

Can HR or in-house managers train the employees and workforce about the standard practices and SOPs to protect patient data? This is a common issue that leads to complications with legal bodies. Without testing, self-attestation makes HIPAA training ineffective. A few slides cannot educate your staff about what to do when breaches happen and how to prevent them from happening in the very first place.

Best Tips to Keep HIPAA Compliance

Maintaining a robust organizational culture to protect the secrecy of patients not only saves you from fines but also shows your commitment to professionalism. Digitization of the medical industry has optimized service delivery.

This modernization has also made data prone to security breaches and cyberattacks. Here are some practical tips that can help your business stay on track for maintaining HIPAA compliance.

1. Promote a Stronger Culture of Security and Privacy

You checked all items on the list without any professional training sessions for the employees. Firewalls and standard security protocols are in place and your employees also understand they cannot share data. Is that all? HIPAA compliance is not something that a healthcare business can take lightly. ComplianceJunction delivers top-tier HIPAA training for healthcare providers and business associates. We support long-term success and regulatory peace of mind.

Employees at all levels should understand their role in protecting Protected Health Information (PHI). They should feel empowered to report potential vulnerabilities or incidents without fear of reprisal. It is quite common in busy workplaces for staff members to forget the importance of PHI. Regular reminders and communication keep them up to date about their role in the whole process.

2. Assess Risks Regularly

Under the HIPAA Security Rule, regular risk assessment is an important part of keeping your compliance on track. In the ever-changing environments, new risks arise and there should be plans in place to mitigate those risks.

If there are vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the system or the business policies, relevant entities should address them soon. A little issue can turn out to be a bigger breach if the risk is not detected timely. HIPAA training for employees empowers the management and workforce with the skills required to detect and mitigate security risks.

3. Safeguard Physical Documents

Almost every hospital, healthcare provider, and clinic is primarily using digital platforms to store data of patients. In many practices, physical documents are still important. Keeping those important files with data and information of patients in the open can pose a serious threat to the safety of information.

There should be locked cabinets to store these physical files. The storage and data rooms should be accessible to authorized members only. Limiting access to important data reduces the risk of exposure or breaches.

If documents are to be disposed of, there should be strict policies for the safe disposal of physical papers and files. Throwing these files in a waste bin can be a mistake and ask the employees to properly shred the papers.

4. Review your Security Awareness Program

Annual assessments and other training sessions are compulsory to keep your staff informed. But a single session or security program is not enough because there are so many factors at play. Instead of playing a recorded video about the latest changes in the security protocols, conduct sessions where experts train your workforce.

The right security awareness program is not just about an event, but it should promote behavioral change in employees toward the safety of healthcare records. Without a professional service provider, HIPAA training with self-attestation doesn’t keep learners engaged. HIPAA training makes sure that employees can practically implement their knowledge in real-life situations.

5. Activate Two-Factor Authentication

Setting a strong password and unique username for every employee is something that no one can ignore. However, for remote access to healthcare records, relying on password-only protection and security can also be a mistake. Using your name or date of birth as password is a common practice that facilitates data breaches.

There are Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) options available on almost every digital platform. This may seem like a time-consuming process, but it's worth it. One-time password (OTP) and security tokens along with unique usernames and passwords can also improve the security of the data stored on computers or cloud storage platforms.

6. Move Beyond Self-attestation in HIPAA Training

Without assessing the readiness of your employees, how are you supposed to determine the areas that need improvement? There might be gaps that need more work and attention. Filling these gaps is only possible when the right trainers conduct HIPAA training sessions for a healthcare business.

Without professional training and education for compliance, you are just inviting unwanted issues and penalties. HIPAA training that relies on self-attestation lacks accountability. Compliance shows that privacy and security are embedded parts of the organizational structure.

Training sessions are not taken seriously in most work environments and it’s a sad reality. Organizations conduct different events just to avoid legal issues. For an engaged and informative training session with practical implementation and assessment, only experienced trainers should conduct these sessions.

7. Vet Business Associates More Often

Modern healthcare systems consist of many actors. Your compliance extends to your business associates (BAs). Any third-party vendor that:

• Creates
• Receives
• Maintains
• Transmits

PHI on your behalf must be HIPAA compliant. Only thoroughly vetted suppliers, vendors, and business associates should be part of your organization. Your business associates should understand the importance of their role in this whole scenario. Any breach caused by your BA will have a huge impact on your business. As a healthcare provider, you are responsible for HIPAA compliance for your partners too.

8. Document Everything

In HIPAA compliance, documentation is an important part. Verbal communication may not be sufficient when you need to verify something. If your staff has completed HIPAA Training, there should be valid documents to prove their training. Important documents may include:

• Risk assessments
• Training logs
• Policy reviews
• Breach reports
• Business associate agreements
• Training certificates

This documentation serves as proof of your due diligence in the event of an audit or investigation. An optimized and efficient documentation system also shows your commitment to securing PHI.

9. Focus on the Human Element

You have updated HIPAA-compliant software, robust security protocols, and secure networks. All of these factors can fail if a capable person is not operating them. Lack of proper training for your employees can put the entire system at risk.

Conducting regular HIPAA training sessions and programs for your employees can make them understand the importance of the security and safety of data. Experienced and trained staff members are more likely to protect data and the integrity of your business.

Prepare for the Worst

HIPAA training for employees is not all about preventing attacks and breaches. This is the mistake many businesses make, they only on prevention. Attacks can impact even the most secure networks. What to do if your data is breached? Is your staff trained to handle the data breach and control the damage? All of these issues are covered under the supervision of qualified HIPAA trainers.

Incident response plans are important to minimize the damage due to data breaches. Even if the data breach is not serious, a lack of proper incident reporting can also cause legal issues for management. According to the incident, employees must know what the dos and don’ts of these incidents are. Preparing for the worst makes sure that extremely threatening situations are also handled according to the plan.

Final Verdict

HIPAA compliance is not optional but legal requirement for healthcare providers, business associates, and other stakeholders. These are just a few tips to keep your HIPAA compliance on track but practical training sessions can add real value to the behavioral change in an organizational culture.

HIPAA compliance isn’t something to revisit once a year. It's a continuous commitment to privacy, security, and responsibility. Always remember that a DIY approach to compliance is always more expensive than professional training by qualified service providers in the long run.

Many small businesses take on the compliance journey all by themselves. Finally, they end up being fined by authorities and ComplianceJunction does not want you to end up like this. Invest in professional HIPAA training only.