HIPAA Compliant Online Form
In 1996, former US President Bill Clinton signed The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), formed by the U.S Congress. The Act was to modernize the distribution of healthcare information and control how personal information of individuals obtained by the healthcare and insurance sectors would remain safeguarded against fraud and theft.
Up to this date, the rules governing HIPAA are still applicable. Thanks to technology and modernization, any medical practice can easily collect patient health information digitally. However, the healthcare industry must be careful not to violate any HIPAA rules.
If you are a dentist or any other medical practitioner who owns a private practice, you need to understand how HIPAA works. HIPAA privacy and security rules require all the businesses covered by HIPAA to put into place a set of rules that will ensure confidentiality, availability, and integrity of the health information collected.
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Importance of HIPAA Compliance
- HIPAA aims to make certain the privacy and confidentiality of all clients.
- It also guarantees all patients access to their medical information. No medical practitioner can keep important health information from his or her patients.
- HIPAA guidelines improve the data systems of the healthcare organization. This results in a massive decrease in fraudulent activities thereby increasing data security.
- It also provides a unique structure that controls who can access and view specific health information. This also restricts access to highly sensitive information from those whom it does not concern.
- It protects the civil rights of individuals by ensuring that everyone has complete access to a copy of their medical records.
- By obtaining HIPAA compliant online forms, your health care entity provides data protection for anyone who generates, stores, transmits, or uses individually identifiable health information.
How not having HIPAA compliance can hurt your business
Lack of HIPAA compliant online forms can really affect your medical practice. This is because in case of a data breach, your firm will be in trouble for allowing unwarranted access to medical records of your clients. Various things may happen and lead to HIPAA violations. They include:
- Devices that contain unencrypted medical records of clients, such as laptops, smart phones, and USB devices, mysteriously disappearing or being stolen.
- Office break-ins- This may result in private medical records going missing.
- Negligence- This involves sending private health information accidentally to the wrong clients.
- Social media posts by health care staff that exposes private health information of clients.
- Lack of ethics- The hospital staff may openly discuss personal health information of patients in public.
- The health care’s computer systems are getting hacked or experiencing malware incidents, ransomware attacks, or cyber attacks, thus leaving all personal patient records exposed to cyber criminals.
Now that you are interested in complying with HIPAA and getting the HIPAA forms online, what are some of its compliance requirements?
- Self audits- Your medical practice must always carry out frequent self-audits in order to keep track of all medical data and notice any infringements.
- Documentation- The organization must have a documentation policy in place to ensure that all health information of patients is in its proper place.
- Incident management- The health care business must have an incident management plan. Sometimes incidences like theft or a security breach are bound to occur. When they do, how will your organization handle the situation? What strategies have you put in place to ensure that client information will remain secure?
- Training of employees, policies, and procedures- When the health care is recruiting new staff, what are some of the guidelines that the organization follows? Will the new members have access to all private health information of patients immediately? Is there a period of assessing the workers and carrying out background checks? How trustworthy is the new staff?
- Business Associate Management- What kind of relationship does the medical organization have with its business associates? What amount of access are the business associates granted to the information of the health organization? Are there any security guidelines governing the relationship? What happens when there has been a business associate breach?
Continuously reviewing and improving systems, policies, procedures, training, and implementations can help to avoid or minimize all these violations.
Before you search for a HIPAA forms online builder, you must ensure that they are qualified and that they meet the HIPAA compliance standards. So, how will you ensure that your patients’ sensitive medical data and your business information are in safe hands?
Here are a few questions you should ask when evaluating any HIPAA compliant form builder:
Do they provide any form of business associate agreement?
A business associate agreement is a contract between you as the health care provider and the HIPAA compliant forms builder. It outlines how the form builder uses the personal health information they collect, what policies they have implemented to protect the information, and what occurs in the event of breach of data.
Health organizations are different in size and practice. As such, ensure the business associate agreement is custom made to suit your medical practice.
Has a third party audited them?
Before you trust any form builder to set up medical forms online for your organization, make sure to check their audit records. Some form builders will claim to be HIPAA Compliant after completing their own internal audits and setting up some policies. It is always better to get a second opinion from a third party about the performance of the form builder. This will show you what kind of services to expect when they set up HIPAA medical forms online for you.
Do you have a security team?
Check whether the HIPAA compliant form builder has a dedicated security team that can respond to breaches immediately. You want to have all the sensitive data in your organization monitored 24/7.
What happens in the event of a data breach?
Confirm who will bear the responsibility when a security breach occurs. This will be significant if you ever have a HIPAA violation incident. Make sure you are comfortable with the arrangement.
We, Solution21, can build the HIPAA medical forms for your organization. With HIPAA compliant online forms, you can ensure that your patients remain not only healthy but also protected.
The Solution
Solution21, Inc. is the premier provider of website design Internet marketing company with solutions designed for healthcare professionals including dentists, dental specialists, cosmetic surgeons, chiropractors, dental labs, med spas and other healthcare professionals.
Our unique team of digital marketing experts, seasoned software designers and developers will place you on Google’s radar. Exceptional personalized service, competitive packages and increased lead generation are the hallmark of Solution21.