Avoiding Hefty Fines Through HIPAA Compliance
As a healthcare provider, your number one objective is to ensure the wellbeing of your patients. After all, you didn’t get to where you are without first taking the Hippocratic oath. While diagnosing and treating the ailments of your patients is a key part of your practice, you also need to make sure you’re protecting their personal information, as well. Failure to do so can not only put your patients’ privacy at risk, it can also endanger your practice, too. HIPAA violations cost medical practices millions of dollars each year. To help avoid having a hefty fine land in your lap, it’s important to be aware of these four major HIPAA violations that could seriously affect your practice.
Improper Disposal of Patients Records
Imagine this scenario: a patient calls your practice with a question about their treatment. An employee jots a note about the patient on a slip of paper, including the patient’s personal information, and later carelessly throws the paper away. Now that PHI (protected health information) is available to anyone who snoops in your garbage, exposing your practice to reprimand. To prevent serious penalties, all information about patients needs to be properly destroyed when they are no longer needed, including digital and paper records.
Lack of Proper Employee Training
Employees can easily make or break a practice. While well-trained employees can help your office run smoothly, poorly trained employees can quickly lead to severe fines. Something as seemingly benign as staff gossip can lead to PHI reaching unintended ears. If your employees are discussing a patient in front of unauthorized persons, you could be penalized. Nosy, snooping employees can also put your practice at risk. For instance, if an employee tries to view a patient’s health record without legitimate reason, fines can soon follow.
Sharing Patient Information without Consent
Anyone can walk into your practice and claim to be acting on behalf of a patient. They may attempt to access the patient’s records, insisting that they were sent by the patient themselves. Failure to get proper consent for release of PHI can deal a devastating blow to your practice. Before you release any information to anyone, you need to first confirm with the patient that the individual in question is permitted to do so.
Refusing to Release a Patient’s Records
Just as releasing a patient’s information to unauthorized individuals can lead to punitive measures, so can your failure to release this information to the patient in a timely manner. Outright refusal to release the records to the patient, charging an excessive fee for releasing it, and not releasing the records within a 30-day time limit are all grounds for penalty.
With so much nuance surrounding correct HIPAA compliance, it can be challenging to try to navigate it on your own. To learn more about the HIPAA compliance services that we here at Zenith Healthcare Solutions offer, or to schedule a free consultation with us, please contact us today!
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