There are a few solid steps you can take to help reduce the likelihood of a HIPAA breach violation affecting your medical practice, such as:
Examine Your Vulnerabilities:
Consider hiring a data security consultant to conduct an end-to-end risk assessment of your technological operations and medical billing function. If that is out of your budget, at the very least use the HIPAA audit protocols to determine which HIPAA privacy and security rules the OCR is looking for, and then invest in strengthening your protections in each of those areas.
Smart Policies should be implemented and updated:
You have security measures in place, but how frequently do you review them? The same question applies to your incident response plan, data backup strategy, and even employee education and training programmes. Make certain that you have defined strategies in place, including scheduled reviews and updates every six months, if not more frequently.
Keep Track of Your Technology:
Since the pandemic began in 2020, cybercrime has increased by 600%. Security flaws abound in our increasingly tech-driven healthcare environment, ranging from malware and phishing to mobile device theft or loss. When organizations fail to understand their risk factors holistically, the threats multiply as a result of that lack of awareness.
Enlighten Your Staff on Best Practices :
Hold your teammates and partners accountable. Is your staff carrying out day-to-day tasks in a secure manner? Or are you turning a blind eye when you see unlocked laptops, unsecured mobile devices, and open charts lying around in dangerous places? Ensure that your team adheres to all applicable policies and procedures, and extend the same vigilance to your business associates and all third parties with whom you collaborate, including your medical billing service.
Some of key Ideas to focus with’ Protect paper files Monitor emails, texts and social media Encrypt data and hardware Enable MDM tools Conduct a yearly risk assessment Training
Turn to WWS for HIPAA-compliant medical billing, revenue cycle management, and other services to help you streamline your practice and optimize your operations.