HIPAA Compliance for Small Business Owners: How to Protect Your Data
As a small business owner in the healthcare industry, just hearing the term HIPAA (aka the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) may evoke some anxiety—especially given the high-profile healthcare data breaches in recent years and speculation that the healthcare sector remains a primary target of cyberattacks.
Of course, one of the most important goals of HIPAA’s Title II is to ensure that an individual’s private medical history or data doesn’t end up in the wrong hands:
Title II of HIPAA defines policies, procedures, and guidelines for maintaining the privacy and security of individually identifiable health information as well as outlining numerous offenses relating to health care and sets civil and criminal penalties for violations.
How Can Small Businesses Make Sure They’re HIPAA Compliant?
Every business owner I’ve worked with certainly wants to protect their clients’ sensitive health information (ePHI—electronic personal health information). They understand the importance of security and value the privacy of their customers and members. They’re also more than aware of the harsh penalties they could incur if they violate HIPAA policies– penalties that could include severe fines, business restrictions, and even jail time.
However, many small business owners are unsure about the rules and standards they must meet to comply with HIPAA.
“I don’t have an IT department—I am the IT department. I do the best I can, but I won’t be able to follow all of HIPAA’s strict rules and regulations… I’m not sure I even know what they are. I just don’t have the time or the resources to set it all up,” a client recently explained.
Strict rules and policies: This is a common misconception about HIPAA.
In reality, HIPAA outlines the issues that need to be addressed– and then gives companies the flexibility to create their own policies to deal with them.
Unfortunately, this flexibility doesn’t necessarily make the roadmap to HIPAA compliance any more straightforward for business owners. In fact, it can lead to more confusion and a sense of insecurity. Are we doing enough to protect data? Are we doing it right?
Making a HIPAA Compliance Plan
Many business owners also need more preparation or guidance about their responsibilities regarding documentation. HIPAA requirements require written documentation of the policies in place and backed-up log reports of related activity. Logs and records are crucial to compliance, and it’s imperative that business owners protect themselves with robust documentation. If there’s an audit or a data event, you need to be able to show that you’ve been following the rules.
Between the many issues that need to be considered, the open-ended policies, and the need for rigorous “paperwork,” it’s easy to understand how a seemingly simple HIPAA requirement can quickly become complicated for a small business owner just looking to run their business.
Here’s an example:
HIPAA states that companies must “Establish (and implement as needed) procedures to restore any loss of data.”
To meet this requirement, a company can establish a policy of backing up PHI (Personal Health Information) data daily.
Easy enough, right?
But how can this policy be efficiently and effectively followed? Where will the data be backed up? How long does the data need to be kept? How will the daily backup be logged? Will you be able to prove later that you’ve been following this policy?
IT Support for Compliance Peace of Mind
This is where our IT management and support services come in—to make your life easier and your business more secure. As a managed security service provider (MSSP) specializing in healthcare, we have years of experience assisting clients in achieving HIPAA compliance effectively and efficiently, with a seamless process that won’t interrupt your operations.
How can we help? Well, let’s take a look at the seven main areas of HIPAA compliance in your IT environment:
1. Redundancy. HIPAA dictates that IT resources be fully available at all times. This means creating contingency plans for access in case of an emergency. If there’s a disaster, can you still access important information?
Compliance fix: We’ll ensure there are three safe and secure copies of your data, with one copy securely stored off-site.
2. Up-to-date backups. This includes backups of the systems and their logs. If there’s a system failure, can you restore the needed data and files?
Compliance fix: After a comprehensive risk assessment and system analysis, we’ll create a fully compliant data backup plan to suit your business or organization’s unique needs. This plan will include an automated backup schedule, detailed automated logging, a disaster recovery plan, and rigorous testing.
3. Encryption. This means protecting health information using a special algorithm that renders data useless to anyone without the code to unencrypt it. That way, even if a malicious party can intercept data, they still won’t be able to understand it.
Compliance fix: Your organization will have exclusive access to patient information with a HIPAA-compliant infrastructure, 256-bit AES encryption standard, and two-factor authentication.
4. Restricted physical access. Your IT infrastructure’s virtual components must be secure, but the physical components must also be reasonably guarded against outside access.
Compliance fix: We’ll use our industry expertise to create a custom physical access plan that’s secure and compliant– without disrupting your day-to-day workflow. (See examples here)
5. Access control and validation. Controls should be in place to restrict who can log on and what data they can access. Access to sensitive data should only be granted to employees who need it to perform their job duties. Plus, access should be immediately blocked when an employee leaves the organization.
Compliance fix: With managed access capabilities, you can specify access levels and permissions for individuals and work groups and easily change them as needed. Real-time audits allow you to see who’s accessing (and trying to access) what data, and remote access control enables you to limit or remove access instantly.
6. Logs—of everything. Logging and audits are major parts of HIPAA compliance. Although HIPAA doesn’t specify an exact length of time for keeping logs, industry standards and sometimes state-specific requirements exist.
Compliance fix: Our systems automate secure records and logs, resulting in clean audit trails and a fully compliant documentation process you can be confident in.
7. It’s not all IT. Remember, HIPAA compliance goes beyond IT. Even with technical safeguards in place, human error is often the weakest link in security. Train your employees in your HIPAA compliance policies and ensure they understand the severe penalties for disclosing ePHI inappropriately.
Compliance fix: With engaging interactive classes and real-life scenarios, our virtual training courses and programs will help your employees understand the importance of HIPAA compliance and ePHI security.