The word “HIPAA” and “compliance” are likely a part of your professional vocabulary if you work in healthcare. You’ll hear these words being thrown around in the context of patient records, paperwork, and more.
The Health Portability and Accountability Act HIPAA protects patients’ privacy. The HIPAA framework was drafted to keep patients safe by protecting their privacy and safeguarding their information’s confidentiality.
In addition, the HIPAA regulation was crafted to protect innocent and lawful enterprises against powerful lawsuits that may undermine their credibility and reputation and affect their business operations. The HIPAA act is a well-known way of safeguarding your healthcare organization, employees, and patients.
HIPAA compliance poses a wide range of benefits:
Benefits of HIPAA Compliance
Whether you’re a business associate, covered entity, or a managed service provider, being HIPAA compliant can be immensely beneficial to your enterprise. The benefits of HIPAA compliance are differentiation, loyalty, and profitability.
- Trust. There’s no doubt that HIPAA-compliant organizations are more trusted. That is because patients, clients, and other stakeholders are confident that you take their private information seriously. Protected health information PHI is one of the most sought-after yet vulnerable datasets out there. When you’re HIPAA compliant as an organization, entity, or business, you must implement controls and safeguards to ensure the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of protected health information. There’s no doubt that HIPAA compliant organizations are safer and more protected.
- Loyalty. A key advantage of HIPAA compliance is patient loyalty. With trust comes increased loyalty; when clients or patients know they can trust your organization or business, they’re likely to continue utilizing your services and products for their needs.
- Profitability. The profitability of your organization increases when you retain more clients or patients due to their trust and loyalty to you. Retaining existing clients or patients means that your recurring income increases, so your enterprise needs less new business to remain profitable. Thus, HIPAA compliance is a gold standard for increased profitability for companies that handle and manage private consumer data.
- Differentiation. It’s never been more important to differentiate yourself from the competition. Businesses and organizations are investing in standing out, but only a few are gaining an edge in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Organizations and enterprises differentiate themselves by working with trusted technology providers to strengthen their compliance programs.
MSPs Are Transforming HIPAA Compliance!
It’s crucial to understand the relationship between HIPAA compliance and MSPs before looking at how managed service providers are helping businesses and individuals with HIPAA compliance.
Well, managed service providers MSPs are agencies that remotely handle their clients’ IT systems. Managed service providers MSPs are classified as business associates because they handle information and data assets on behalf of their clients. In addition, MSPs handle protected health information on behalf of clients, helping businesses transcend and conform to data protection safeguards as laid out in the HIPAA framework.
So, smaller businesses and smaller companies who must comply with HIPAA find out that employing or hiring the services of an outsourced provider enables them to cut costs and devote less time and less internal resources to their compliance programs. Companies with an internal IT team can benefit from the services of a managed service provider.
Managed service providers offer a team of technicians and IT professionals to handle all your IT needs – security management, application, network, managed cloud infrastructure, organized communication, and managed wireless and mobile computing services.
Your MSP must demonstrate professionalism and service excellence to allow them to gain access to your company’s protected information. MSPs are not only technically proficient in IT systems’ maintenance, but they’re also well-aware of government controls like HIPAA regulations. That means they should be able to service covered entities. Regulatory compliance is the main reason companies hire managed service providers.
How MSPs Help With HIPAA Compliance:
- Technical expertise. The managed service provider provides proof of previous work and testimonials. Managed service providers understand the HIPAA law and have the technical expertise and knowledge to help your business maintain full compliance. It’s advisable to select an experienced vendor who’s been in business for a long time.
- Security system. Managed service providers answer all questions concerning the quality and integrity of their security systems. Most will tell you about the quality of their encryption systems and how they protect your PHI – whether stored, in transit, or at rest.
- Environmental controls. MSPs have rules and procedures for staff handling sensitive information. The managed service provider has access controls in place just like your organization. These ecological controls ensure that only the necessary parties access protected health information on your organization’s behalf. As a client outsourcing an MSP, you need to ensure that only experts will handle your data and IT resources. It’s also essential that you know that not everyone in the MSP has access to your information, resources, or data.
- Continuous monitoring. It’s important to ensure that the managed service provider will constantly monitor your system, not just when you start working together. Ask them how they plan to scan your system continuously and how you can prove that, indeed, all systems are protected at all times.
- Advanced technologies. Most MSPs will use the cloud, networking technologies, and a combination of automation and AI-powered tools to manage critical IT infrastructure. A ticket tracking system develops lists of any unsolved issues. This software allows your MSP to track the problems and maintain an accurate record of security incidents.
Edafio Technology – Making HIPAA Compliance in Arkansas Easy
Edafio Technology is your technology partner for digital transformation. Edafio Technology has tailored solutions in healthcare consulting. This means organizations looking to be HIPAA compliant can access timely and actionable solutions. Edafio is committed to designing intelligent technology solutions to bridge healthcare gaps and improve the quality of services across the continuum of care.
Contact Edafio to reinforce your HIPAA compliance plans and programs.
