Top HIPAA Compliance Tips for Small Practitioners

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act has brought about significant changes in the healthcare industry’s approach to data protection. According to the Ponemon Institute’s benchmark study on Patient Privacy and Data Security, of Nov 2010, “data breaches were responsible for huge costs for healthcare organizations that amounted to an average of close to $1million annually.” However, the HITECH Act is expected to change this scenario soon. 

Now referred to as HIPAA-2, the HITECH Act has stringent requirements for compliance, penalties and incentives for the adoption of Electronic Medical Record keeping (EMR). The new and stronger Act is designed to ensure that data breaches are reduced drastically. Since the HITECH Act makes it mandatory for healthcare organizations to reveal patient privacy breaches to their patients, these organizations including small medical practices are looking for a cost-effective HIPAA/HITECH compliance solution. Here are a few tips to help small medical practitioners pick the right solution to meet HIPAA/HITECH compliance requirements and benefit the small medical practitioners:

• Choose a compliance solution that can cover both privacy and security standards
• Opt for a solution that can provide documented proof/evidence of compliance, which they can produce to auditors and other authorities if needed
• The solution must provide menu-driven assessment to assist in comprehending and controlling HIPAA/HITECH requirements
• The solution must offer a comprehensive policy framework and customized templates for easily attaching evidence
• The HITECH compliance management solution should offer medical practitioners a central repository for all HIPAA compliance related documentation
• Offer automatic updates on new or revised policies, procedures, and forms that reflect changes in standards or changes in regulatory requirements
• Send out periodic reminders for assessment for monitoring compliance.
• Provide appropriate tools for tracking and managing business associates with a simple plug-in option for all PCI-DSS compliance requirements.

Introduced in conjunction with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the HITECH Act makes it mandatory for healthcare entities to follow Electronic Medical Recordkeeping (EMR) methods. To ensure that healthcare companies comply with these requirements, several attractive incentives are being offered. However non-compliance attracts very heavy penalties and fines that could amount to $1.5 million per year, or criminal prosecution. Healthcare practitioners should therefore keep these tips in mind while choosing a compliance solution- because, it’s better to be safe than sorry!

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