All You Need To Know About HIPAA Compliance- A Key Priority In Healthcare Development

If you are in the healthcare industry or healthcare app development, you would have for sure heard of HIPAA compliance. It is among the top priorities in healthcare software development.

HIPAA compliance is in place to protect individuals’ medical data and to ensure everyone has complete access to their medical records. It says that the medical authorities cannot share the users’ data without their consent. It is ultimately a civil rights issue.

HIPAA mandates data protection for anyone who creates, stores, transmits, or uses an individual’s identifiable health information. If the software or the healthcare organization doesn’t follow the HIPAA compliance norms, it can raise several legal issues. That is why any healthcare entity and company which manages, stores, maintains, or transmits patients’ health information is expected to strictly follow HIPAA guidelines and be in compliance with the regulations of the law.

What is HIPAA Compliance?

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is all about ensuring that the sensitive healthcare information of the patients or their personal data is protected from fraud and theft. It also addresses limitations on healthcare insurance coverage. Companies associated with protected health information (PHI) must have a physical network, and process security measures in place and follow them to ensure HIPAA compliance. The failure to comply with HIPAA regulations results in serious fines, even if there isn’t any PHI breach, while a breach of PHI can lead to the filing of criminal charges and civil action lawsuits.

Purpose of HIPAA

HIPAA compliance was introduced to serve the following primary purposes-

1. Securing Patients’ Data

This means that the patient’s personal information along with their medical history, lab reports, payment-related information, etc. must be kept confidential. Disclosing their data without their consent can land you in serious trouble. Consent is necessary, for example, in some cases, the EHR of a patient can be accessed or shared with their prior permission.

2. Transferable Insurance

HIPAA provides employees with health plans insurance coverage. Additionally, it also offers them an opportunity to register themselves in a group health plan in case the coverage is lost or any mishappening occurs. HIPAA compliance doesn’t discriminate against employees or their family members based on health factors. Although access rights to PHI are limited to higher authorities, an individual can renew his/her policy whenever they feel so.

3. Safe Administrative Structure

This is to minimize paperwork and set up information safely and securely. This includes-

3.1 Electronic data transmission

Data exchange between two parties to implement financial or administrative activities should have accurate information. For example, if a medical insurance company asks for any information for claim settlement, the information provided should be correct so that the settlement can be initiated easily.

3.2 Structured Classification

Medical records are categorized into Diagnosis, Procedures, Lab Reports, Medication, Equipment, and Suppliers.

3.3 Identifiers

Every record contains a unique key to identify employees, i.e. a 10-digit employee identification number that can connect the user’s PHI with their identity proof.

How to ensure HIPAA Compliance?

One can make their software HIPAA compliant or achieve security of PHI by the following measures-

1. Data Encryption

This means translating the patients’ data into a form that cannot be decrypted by unauthorized users or those who do not own an encryption key. Several types of data encryption are available, for example, block-level, file-level encryption, etc.

2. Authorized User Access

Only some specific or authorized users are permitted to access the software and confidential information. Also, one covered entity should not be able to access the information of other covered entities unless they are working with some health firm, payments, or insurance.

3. Data Transmission Security

Unauthorized users should not be able to track the network or interrupt the data transmission.

4. Security Audit Procedures

This comprises frequent security measures such as vulnerability assessment, continuous system monitoring, penetration testing, etc.

5. Data Access Control

It involves setting up user roles, user authentication, access permissions, etc. This helps to restrict access to the system as per the permissions assigned to specific user roles, so you can keep the patient data private and reduce the chances of data leakage.

Myths about HIPAA Compliance

There are some common myths as well around HIPAA compliance. Let’s look at them.

1. It’s mandatory to have a HIPAA certificate

One myth that you may hear very often is that having a HIPAA certificate solves everything related to HIPPA compliance. Some consider them as official HIPAA documents and believe that it is mandatory to have them. Many companies are misled by these kinds of proposals. But in reality, the US government hasn’t legally accepted HIPAA certification. These are generally third-party providers who propose HIPAA compliance training or testing services, which are optional as per the HIPAA security rule.

2. HIPAA-compliant software makes the organization HIPAA-compliant as well

Be it a telemedicine app or any other type of healthcare software, it being HIPAA-compliant doesn’t make the entire organization the same. It’s just a part of your internal digital and administrative system. To do it for the entire organization, you must create a HIPAA-compliant environment where all safeguards of internal processes are set up. A well-implemented HIPAA-compliant solution can prove to be reliable for the overall environment of your organization.

What’s the need for HIPAA compliance?

HIPAA compliance becomes more important than ever as the healthcare providers and other associated entities with PHI move towards computerized operations, which includes Electronic Health Records (EHR), Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) systems, radiology system, laboratory system, and pharmacy system. Similarly, having a health plan provides you with access to claims, care management, and self-service applications. Although these electronic methods tend to boost efficiency and mobility, they also give rise to security risks as well associated with healthcare data.

The security rule is to protect an individual’s health-related and personal information while also allowing the covered entities to adopt new technologies in order to enhance the quality and efficiency of patient care.

HIPAA Compliance Checklist

Here’s the checklist of the things that you need to perform to ensure that your organization complies with the HIPAA guidelines.

1. Find out the required annual audits and assessments that apply to your organization.

2. Perform the required audits and assessments, analyze the results, and document any deficiencies.

3. Document your remediation plans and put them into action; review annually, and update as required.

4. If you haven’t done so already, let this be managed by a Security Officer.

5. Make sure that the officer conducts annual HIPAA training for all staff.

6. Ensure HIPAA training and staff member attestation of HIPAA policies and procedures are documented.

7. Review processes for staff members to report breaches and how breaches are notified.

The Bottom Line

Any company that is into healthcare app development or a healthcare organization that collects or holds or shares the patient’s protected information needs to be HIPAA compliant. We, at Dew, also ensure that the healthcare apps that we develop are made HIPAA-compliant.

Also, as we mentioned, the violation of such compliance can put you or the organization in legal trouble and a heavy fine apart from harming your brand image and making your customers lose their trust.

Complying with HIPAA regulations may seem a tedious task, but it’s the need of the hour to practice proper security hygiene anyway to protect ourselves and at the same time, keep the patients’ data secure.