When it comes to HIPAA compliance for health companies, there are a few steps you can take to ensure your information is kept confidential and safe. In fact, many of the laws regarding personal information were created to help these kinds of businesses protect themselves and their customers. One such law, HIPAA, actually states that any company that provides healthcare services has to comply with certain regulations. Here are a few things you can do to make sure you are keeping up with those regulations and providing the best medical care for your patients:

Create a privacy policy. This is really the heart of your company’s HIPAA compliant activities. HIPAA compliance is required for companies that deal with personally identifiable patient data. It tells your patients what you do and how you do it, as well as telling them how and when certain information can be shared. Without this policy, a patient might think you’re okay with sharing their medical history with anyone who wants to look it over, but without it, they may very well think you’re liable for sharing information that isn’t actually relevant to their care and treatment.

Decide who gets to see the patient’s information.

The health industry isn’t a simple business. There are multiple people who need to access your records, and chances are, some of them don’t really know what you want to share with them. To ensure you don’t violate HIPAA privacy policies, you’ll need to decide exactly who gets to see what information.

Train staff on proper patient care techniques. If you want to ensure you stay in compliance, then your staff needs to learn how to talk to patients, document medical information, and so on. Don’t assume that all of your employees are up on the new technology, learning it the way you are. Instead, train them to use it at the same time that you are teaching them new procedures.

Keep records up to date.

While most of your records should be more than 10 years old, there are cases when age is a real issue. If you are working with older information, you may be dealing with more problems than you can fix. It’s best to get a fresh start with your medical records by having them updated as much as possible with the latest standards.

Put the information on paper. Your patient information is not just words on a screen. It should be organized and easy to find. Use the internet to store notes, images, and videos for easy online access. Even if you aren’t comfortable printing your documents, someone else can. This will help keep your records clear and concise.

Report constantly. HIPAA compliance for health companies means regularly surveying how your business is doing. By doing so, you can spot areas that aren’t quite meeting your standards. You may even find new opportunities to improve the way your medical facility functions.

This doesn’t mean you always have to follow all of the regulations. You need to do your best to make sure your facilities are following the standards and regulations as set forth by the federal government and the medical industry. If you don’t do so, your business will fail to stay compliant, which could lead to serious legal trouble. When it comes to keeping your medical facility compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, health companies must work hard to stay in compliance.

Some of the information that needs to be kept private relates to financial information, but that’s not everything. In fact, most of the information can relate to a patient’s medical history, though some information is more general. For example, if a patient has diabetes and wants to update their records, they should be able to do so seamlessly.

When it comes to keeping your records clean, you need to know where to find them. This is where dedicated servers come into play. Most health companies choose to keep their records onsite, but when you’re faced with a huge data center project, it may be smarter to outsource the job. With a dedicated server, health companies can keep their information safe while also saving time on the back end by having the data around only when it’s needed.

• With so much information being sent online, keeping your website HIPAA compliant is absolutely vital.
• Make sure your health information is encrypted when you send it off and secure it well before sending it off to customers.
• Ask your hosting provider for a list of tools to help you along the way. A little education and training go a long way towards ensuring compliance and delivering a better service to your clients.