Sunday, June 2, 2019

By Diane Foster


HIPAA is a set of rules which ensure that patient health information is available and secure. Failing to comply with these rules could lead to lawsuits and hefty fines that ruin the reputation of a company. If you work in the healthcare industry or in an organization that has access to healthcare data, you need innovative HIPAA management solutions to guarantee compliance.

HIPAA is also designed to safeguard patients and ensure that unauthorized individuals do not gain access to their health information. Identity thieves seek such information and as they continue looking for deceptive ways to steal it, health care organizations must implement effective security and privacy measures to keep the information secure. They can protect private information using solutions with user authentication.

It is also vital for your software to have self-audits. HIPAA rules call for a set of audits that health care organizations must execute. The audits need to span the security and privacy infrastructure of an organization to identify risk areas. Good software can use these audits to provide you with a complete picture of the compliance of your organization. They can guide you when creating a compliance plan. Self-audits are more cost effective compared to hiring a consultant to provide you with the data you need.

The other essential feature is documentation. Federal regulation authorizes this feature and you need it to show that you have taken the necessary steps to comply with regulations. Documentation is among the major benefits of opting to use compliance software.

It is vital for the software to build the plan of an organization and document the process as the years go by so that it can be prepared for an audit. The best software can provide doctors, dentists and other health care professionals with comprehensive and accurate documentation. Such documentation can minimize delayed or denied payments, reduce workflow burden, and ensure that patients access high quality care.

It is also vital to choose solutions that have remediation plans. Self audits will showcase deficiencies in your HIPAA compliance and dealing with the deficiencies forms the basis of remediation plans. The plans should lay out how you plan to deal with non-compliance issues. Effective software should enable you to create and execute your remediation plans straightforwardly. The data you have input into your self-audits can populate remediation plans to remedy the deficiencies or gaps you have uncovered.

When you identify gaps in your organization and remedy them, you need a tool that can prevent them from becoming recurring areas of risk. That is where procedures and policies come into the picture. Your software needs to have a means of creating procedures and policies you may implement in your organization. These often come in the form of basic templates you can fill in and adapt to the needs of your organization.

Health specialists also have to manage their relationship with business associates properly to remain compliant. These are the entities they work with to handle PHI (protected health information). The right management solutions enable health care specialists to manage their relationships with such organizations and this includes business associate agreements. The best solutions reduce the risk of HIPAA fines and breaches.




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