HIPAA Help: Ensure You're Protecting Your Patient's Privacy

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 has sections in it that directs hospitals, medical practices, doctors, health care clearing houses and other health care providers to guard the privacy of patients’ medical records. The act also standardizes guidelines for medical information that is contained in billing records. 

Records HIPAA Applies To
HIPAA requires that selected entities handling medical records ensure the confidentiality and security of them whether they are stored, received, handled or shared. These stipulations apply to both older (legacy) and current paper, electronic and oral records. Some of these records may be paper, but the law requires that they be transferred to an electronic form for safekeeping. 

Advantages of EHRs
Electronic Health Records enable hospitals, medical practices and related entities to save money because they can integrate such processes as medical coding, the record keeping that indicates a patient’s progress. EHRs also save time because greater centralization lets staffers spend less time pulling records. 

Likewise, EHRs facilitate better communication between physicians, therapists, labs, health insurance companies and related enterprises. In having to keep medical records for over 20 years, healthcare providers can be overwhelmed by the amount of data, and the cost of retaining it because regulations also apply to billing and employee-work-hours records. 

Storage
The storage of any kind of patient information can be daunting. EMR data storage needs to be secure, accessible by the appropriate people, and organized.

However, misfortunes sometimes happen and needs to be handled quickly and efficiently. HIPAA requires health care providers to notify patients when there has been a breach of their medical records. If more than 500 patients are affected, the Department of Health and Human Services must be notified. 

Maintaining and securing the services of a business that protects medical records is crucial for deliverers of health services, and they should seek expert help in order to manage the mountains of data, be in compliance with the law and avoid fines.

Patient information is something that is entrusted to many in the healthcare industry, and should be treated as such. Contact your human resources department to make sure you are up-to-date on current HIPAA regulations and policies. By keeping yourself informed, using various ways to store medical records, and ensuring that those storage places are protected the best way they can be, you will show that you take your patient’s privacy seriously.