HIPAA Consulting
Complete & Effortless HIPAA Compliance Services
IVTAS provides comprehensive and easy-to-understand HIPAA compliance consulting for healthcare organizations and businesses handling classified patients’ information. We’ll help you adopt the best cybersecurity practices and comply with the latest HIPAA guidelines. Besides, our HIPAA consultants ensure you maintain compliance, in the long run, allowing you to do your business with peace of mind.
According to HIPAA Journal, 3,705 healthcare data breaches have been reported between 2009 and 2020. Those breaches have led to the loss, exposure, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of a huge number of healthcare records. In 2020, the average number of breaches per day reached 1,76—such a violation results in expensive lawsuits and charges the responsible healthcare organization faces.
Understanding the Healthcare Insurance Portability Act, or HIPAA is of vital importance for organizations dealing with protected health information (PHI). For most people, HIPAA regulations are difficult to understand and follow, resulting in failure to comply with the cybersecurity standards set by HIPAA.
Most companies fail to comply with HIPAA regulations because of the lack of understanding of the strictly set standards. Experienced HIPAA compliance consultants from IVTAS will lead you through the entire process of becoming compliant, making sure you fully understand all the regulations and comply with them entirely. IVTAS is a HIPAA compliance company with many years of experience in the field, during which we have helped small and midsized businesses achieve compliance nationwide.
ROAD TO HIPPA COMPLIANCE SHOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT
We Make HIPAA Compliance Consulting Easy
If your daily business operations involve protected health information, you must adopt essential physical, network, and security measures. That way, you can safeguard sensitive data and prevent unauthorized disclosure or other violations that could put your business at risk.
It’s vital to understand that healthcare organizations are not the only ones that require compliance. Any company responsible for payment and operations in healthcare, businesses or individuals with access to patient information, or third-party contractors that provide support in treatment or IT services, must be HIPAA-compliant to keep delivering their solutions to healthcare organizations.
IVTAS is a trustworthy HIPAA consultant that’s been providing healthcare organizations and business associates around the USA for years. Our HIPAA experts will lead you through the process of becoming HIPAA-compliant effortlessly, ensuring you maintain compliance for years to come. Besides, you won’t have to worry about potential violations – our experienced team of cybersecurity consultants will explain every single detail to help you prevent incidents that could cost your company a fortune.
Complete HIPAA Consulting for Every Industry
HIPAA regulations affect two types of organizations defined as covered entities and business associates. No matter what group your organization belongs to, skilled HIPAA consultants from IVTAS can seamlessly lead you through the process, ensuring you understand the foundation of the Act.
Covered Entities
A covered entity is any organization that creates, collects, and transmits PHI electronically. It includes:
- Healthcare providers (doctors, dentists, psychologists, chiropractors, pharmacies, clinics, and nursing homes)
- Healthcare clearinghouses
- Health insurance providers.
HIPAA compliance also refers to government insurance programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and military health care programs.
Business Associates
A business associate is any organization that uses PHI or ePHI (electronic protected health information) while completing the tasks on behalf of a covered entity. HIPAA-compliant business associates are:
- Billing companies
- IT providers
- Email hosting vendors
- EHR platforms
- Attorneys
- Accountants
- Laboratories
Essentially, any company that creates, maintains or transmits PHI must be HIPAA-compliant.
BECOME HIPPA COMPLIANT IN 3 STEPS
How We Perform HIPAA Consulting?
With so many HIPAA consulting firms out there, you might not be sure whose services to choose. So, let us narrow your options. IVTAS HIPAA compliance consulting is devoted to delivering stellar cybersecurity consulting services to small and midsize businesses, helping them become compliant in 3 simple steps.
1. INITIAL HIPAA COMPLIANCE AUDIT
Our journey starts with an initial HIPAA compliance assessment of your entire IT infrastructure, including hardware, network, workstations, servers, and endpoints. It helps us detect the strengths and weaknesses of your IT environment, ensuring it’s fully protected and established according to the latest HIPAA guidelines.
2. IMPLEMENTATION
Once you understand HIPAA requirements, you can achieve full HIPAA compliance and keep doing your business with peace of mind. Count on us to be your ally wherever you are in the USA.
3. MANAGEMENT & SUPPORT
We focus on implementing and managing the most advanced cybersecurity concepts, such as antivirus protection, data recovery, and backup. Remember that a super-secure IT environment is the basis of achieving HIPAA compliance.
HOW WE DO IT?
HIPAA Consulting Services We Offer
Cybersecurity experts from IVTAS offer fully managed HIPAA consulting solutions to make sure your ePHI remains protected from unauthorized disclosure, cyber threats, hazards, or similar incidents that could put your reputation at risk.
We offer the following HIPAA consulting services to make sure your organization follows the newest HIPAA guidelines:
- Initial HIPAA compliance assessment
- Complete risk analysis
- Detecting and addressing potentially exposed networks and hardware
- Implementing advanced protection from cyberattacks
- Forming a compliant data protection strategy
- Establishing HIPAA-compliant emails and Office 365 account
- Setting up HIPAA-compliant servers and endpoints
- Checking if the workforce is fully compliant with HIPAA regulations
- Limiting access to data to trusted personnel.
Why Hire Our HIPAA Consultant?
Why choose IVTAS over other HIPAA compliance companies? It’s simple!
Professional HIPAA Support
Personalized HIPAA Consulting
Cybersecurity Beyond Compliance
On-Premises & Cloud Server Solutions
24/7 Monitoring
Trustworthy HIPAA Consultant
LEARN HIPAA BASICS
HIPAA Regulations At-a-Glance
HIPAA guidelines are based on the four key rules the organizations must understand and accept in order to achieve and maintain compliance. These rules are:
HIPAA Privacy Rule
HIPAA Privacy Rule applies to both covered entities and business associates. It determines who can and cannot have access to PHI, the circumstances in which it can be disclosed, and to whom. All employees must go through HIPAA Privacy Rule procedure training annually to understand these rules.
HIPAA Security Rule
HIPAA Security Rule is another rule that both business associates and covered entities must follow. It is designed to protect the privacy of the patient’s electronic protected health information (ePHI) and sets all the administrative, physical, and technical safeguards every healthcare organization and third-party provider must keep in place. Generally, it helps organizations mitigate the risk of unauthorized access to PHI and its accidental disclosure.
HIPAA Breach Notification Rule
According to the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, all business associates and covered entities must report a data breach within two months from the incident. If they fail to do so, they may face severe charges since it’s about one of the most severe HIPAA violations.
HIPAA Omnibus Rule
The HIPAA Omnibus Rule outlines the rules of Business Associate Agreements, which are the contracts between a business associate and covered entity, or between two business associates. It’s obligatory to sign the agreement before any PHI or ePHI can be shared or transferred.
SPEAK WITH HIPAA COMPLIANCE CONSULTANT
(858) 769-5393
How Did COVID-19 Impact HIPAA Regulations?
The entire COVID crisis has affected healthcare, and thus the whole process of achieving HIPAA compliance has become more overwhelming. At the same time, maintaining compliance has also become a struggle for both healthcare organizations and business associates dealing with ePHI. These circumstances have increased the risk of illegal ePHI disclosure, resulting in severe consequences healthcare organizations face.
The following pandemic byproducts may increase the risk of unauthorized ePHI access and disclosure or even a data breach:
- More online appointments: Telehealth visits have become prevalent, which has increased the number of data breaches during the last two years. Thus, it’s become more difficult to control data protection online.
- Increased number of patients: More patients, especially those that visit their doctors online, made it more challenging to maintain HIPAA compliance.
- More healthcare providers: Doctors manage many different patients and get into contact with lots of medical records. With a more overwhelming data flow, it’s become more difficult to prevent HIPAA violations and maintain compliance in the long run.
However, COVID-19 has changed some rules regarding protected health information disclosure. Namely, the HIPAA Privacy Rule allows a covered entity to disclose the PHI of an individual infected with COVID-19 or exposed to the virus to authorities, without the individual’s authorization, in certain circumstances, including, but not limited to:
- To provide treatment: If an individual needs urgent treatment, a covered entity can disclose the protected information to provide emergency medical transport or adequate remedy.
- The law requires it: A covered entity, like a hospital, can disclose PHI about a patient who tests positive for COVID-19 if the law requires it.
- Control spread of disease: HIPAA permits PHI disclosure to a public health authority like the CDC or state to control or prevent the spread of disease.
Most Common HIPAA Compliance Violations
HIPAA violations happen. And although we cannot always prevent them, we can act responsibly once the incidents occur. Some HIPAA violations result in expensive and quite severe criminal charges that could affect your entire healthcare organization, its executives, and employees.
Here is a list of the most frequent HIPAA violations and their consequences:
- Prying into medical records: Medical staff that spies on medical records of their families, friends, or celebrities will face criminal charges and get fired.
- Failing to report a data breach: The HIPAA law requires all covered entities to report a data breach within two months from the event. If they exceed the deadline, they’ll have to pay around $150,000.
- Unauthorized PHI disclosure: Although the HIPAA Privacy Rule permits PHI disclosure in some circumstances, any PHI exposure without the patient’s authorization may make the employees face a lawsuit worth over $2 million.
- Insecure PHI disposal: HIPAA requires covered entities to dispose of both physical and electronic PHI when the information is no longer needed. If it fails to destroy confidential data securely, your organization may face severe consequences.
- Refusing to give patients access to their medical records: Patients can have an insight into their medical records at any time. If an employee refuses to provide patients access within 30 days from their request, they’re violating HIPAA rules and will face charges.
FAQs
What is HIPAA?
HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is the US federal statute that aims to protect the patient’s data and medical records from unauthorized access and disclosure.
What is HIPAA Compliance?
Both covered entities and business associates must be HIPAA-compliant, which means they must understand and follow HIPAA rules and implement cybersecurity practices to safeguard patients’ medical records from data breaches and illegal access.
Which are the Main HIPAA Guidelines?
The goal of HIPAA is to promote the patient’s rights and help prevent the following incidents in the healthcare field:
- Healthcare fraud
- Healthcare abuse by patients and professionals
- Problems with healthcare billing
- Issues with storing medical data
- Accidental disclosure or illegal access during PHI transmission.