HIPAA: A Quick Checkup for Medical Practitioners

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If you’re a medical practitioner, you’re probably well aware of HIPAA, but you may not be up to speed on every aspect surrounding HIPAA compliance.

HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information. HIPAA also comprises of the HIPAA Security Rule, which sets national standards for the security of electronic protected health information and confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protects identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.

Medical practice owners or employees who are delegated to manage compliance need to be fully aware of the HIPAA policy and procedures, since a single violation of compliance can result in fines capable of crippling your cash flow. These necessary yet time-consuming compliance checkups are a crucial component to any business.

Can you or your compliance-responsible employee answer the following 5 questions?

  1. What kind of personally identifiable health information is protected by HIPAA privacy rule?
  2. Who do HIPAA security and privacy regulations apply to? Is it just you, the practitioner? Or your entire office including administrative support and nurses?
  3. A patient of yours was transferred from your facility to the hospital 4 days ago and the hospital just called requesting the patient’s information. Are you permitted to release patient information to the personnel at this hospital over the phone?
  4. How do copies of patient information need to be disposed of?
  5. Are you permitted to access your own medical record through the office computer?

If you missed even one of these questions, it may be time to engage a professional employer organization (PEO). In order to stay up to speed on compliance and human resources management, you may need to dedicate up to 25% of your day if not more on non-patient activities like administration!
Worst of all, HIPAA is just one area of compliance amongst 180 federal laws that the Department of Labor (DOL) administers and enforces.

Many medical practice owners choose to engage a PEO for the sole purpose of ensuring employer compliance. In addition to the many other benefits PEOs provide, PEOs protect – against costly lawsuits, against compliance failure, and against preventable workplace mistakes/accidents.

To learn more about HIPAA, compliance, and other employment-related administration and management solutions, contact Employer Solutions Plus. We’ll help you determine which areas of your business require the most attention, and whether or not those areas need to be managed by a PEO.