Penalties vary across situations but are stricter and more costly if you or affiliated BAs fail to promptly follow the Breach Notification Rule. Post a notice on your website homepage and make every reasonable effort to inform all patients in multiple ways. You must also report breaches to the HHS OCR and, in some regions, your local media outlets.
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Let each person know how to reach you with further questions or clarification. When contacting patients, plainly explain the situation - including all known information about the breach and data affected and your plan for preventing future breaches. All suspected breaches are considered and treated as breaches until you prove otherwise. If your facility has or suspects any breach of PHI or ePHI, the Breach Notification Rule requires you to notify all individuals who may have been impacted within 60 days via first class mail or email depending on what type of communication that patient agreed to during prior authorization. You should also stay up to date on HIPAA changes and future updates to Security Rule guidance. Vulnerabilities include unauthorized use or disclosure, breaches, identity theft, data loss, destruction, or unauthorized changes.Įfficient PHI protection means constantly checking and reevaluating your processes and hardware to adjust as needed, which is why scalability and simplicity should be top priorities when designing your ePHI protection plan. Protection includes privacy for the patient and all their information and against both physical security and cybersecurity threats. Your organization must protect all ePHI while it's collected, stored, received, or sent. You can also use third-party HIPAA certification programs for unbiased, expert suggestions.
How many patients or clients you serve daily. You can get a better idea of your specific requirements by performing a risk assessment and analyzing: Instead, the Security Rule implements a flexible approach with a strong focus on what you should do instead of how you should do it, assuming all methods are also compliant. Because every facility, organization, and team is different, there is no strict set of specific rules. The Security Rule ensures all CEs and BAs follow compliance standards to protect ePHI across all locations, devices, equipment, hardware, and workstations - including shared files. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights (HHS OCR) may audit your facility for potential Privacy Rule violations if they've received a complaint or you've had issues with PHI protection in the past. Videos and images associated with diagnostics and treatment. The Privacy Rule protects all forms of PHI, including: This rule applies to all covered entities (CEs) and business associates (BAs) and requires that all involved parties follow the "minimum necessary rule" to disclose only what is crucial for its intended purpose, with some exemptions. It provides guidance for who can access PHI and ePHI, what they can do with the information they access, and who they can share PHI with. The Privacy Rule applies to physical PHI as well as electronic PHI, or ePHI. The following three rules guide health care facilities through all requirements for protecting physical and digital PHI and reporting breaches to the appropriate parties: The Privacy Rule Safe practices can also give your patients peace of mind that their care and privacy are your top priority. A firm understanding of HIPAA-compliant file transfers helps your team keep all data safe and organized, avoids confusion, and makes their jobs easier. Your facility must stay up to date on the latest safety protocols and technology to protect yourself as hackers create more effective strategies for accessing patient and facility information. If your recent HIPAA risk assessment indicated vulnerabilities in your protected health information (PHI) sharing processes, or you're looking for a way to simplify your processes without cutting into quality care, learn more about file-sharing considerations HIPAA-compliant file sharingĬybercriminals breached more than 29 million health care records in 2020. 
Medical technology has come far, creating safer sharing methods than those of the past - like unsecured email messages or physical hard drives - and replacing them with faster, more compliant solutions. It promotes a more collaborative environment and makes it easy to share information with patients or internal and external experts. File sharing is a normal part of daily operations for most health care facilities.
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