In the modern world, healthcare information requires high-level protection and security. And here is when the HIPAA-compliant help desk comes in handy. On the front, it helps you keep all patient’s personally identifiable data protected: whether it’s just a name with an address or a complete portfolio containing contact details, facial photos, and social security numbers.
So how to pick the best HIPAA-compliant help desk? Let’s go through the must-have list.
What Is HIPAA?
HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was established in 1996. Along with different rights and protections, it confidentially predicts handling PHI (protected health information) along with additional rights and protections. It means that the HIPAA privacy legal provisions make healthcare organizations and their business associates follow relevant procedures. Also, these regulations ensure the confidentiality and security of Protected Health Information during its transferring, receiving, handling, or sharing.
As for help desks, an appropriate system helps maintain continuous compliance with HIPAA rules. At the same time, it allows processing, maintaining, and storing PHI for different entities mentioned in these regulations.
HIPAA Compliant: What Does It Mean?
If your healthcare organization hosts information using the HIPAA customer service provider, you should provide administrative, physical, and technical safeguards.
For instance, physical safeguards involve limited facility access using necessary authorized access. So all covered entities need to implement usages and access policies related to workstations and electronic media. A critical part of the relevant safeguarding effort covers standards to transfer, remove, dispose, and reuse electronic media and PHI.
As for technical safeguards, they set restrictions on access to PHI. In simple words, you need to be an authorized user to access necessary health records. Such a protection form requires applying user ID and emergency access procedures. Also, technical safeguards include information encryption and decryption.
Who must comply with HIPAA regulations?
Such health-related companies should prove their compliance with HIPAA:
- Health plans: Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance companies, health maintenance organizations, company health plans.
- Healthcare providers: The providers who run a relevant business electronically, including doctors, clinics, hospitals, or nursing homes.
- Healthcare clearinghouses: Such entities translate nonstandard health information received from other entities to a standard.
As for business associates, the list includes the following:
- Non-employees of the mentioned entities have access to patients’ health data while providing services to these entities. That may consist of billing companies, lawyers, IT departments, accountants, etc.
Who does not need to follow HIPAA rules?
Such companies fall in the list of exaptions:
- Life insurers
- Personnel that deals with employment (not health) records
- Employees’ compensation carriers
- Almost all schools and school districts
- Numerous state agencies, including child protective services
- The majority of law enforcement agencies
- Multiple municipal offices
What Are the Costs of Non-compliance?
HIPAA Federal guidelines aim to protect people’s medical data. However, doctors, hospitals, and various third-party healthcare providers know the costs of violating these rules. For instance, medical staff can lose their professional licenses to practice medicine; while organizations might get their reputation damaged, get steep fines, or lose their business:
- Fines for healthcare providers can reach from $50,000 to $1,500,000 per record;
- Numerous infractions can lead to loss of certification or even imprisonment.
Of course, it is hard to measure the actual costs of non-compliance. But experts claim that the average total cost of the information breach is $3.8-4 million. Besides, the average price of each lost or stolen health record with sensitive and confidential data is about $158.
However, the penalties for non-compliance established by the government are just the beginning. For instance, the affected companies’ customers can file civil suits and require millions of dollars. So, realizing the actual costs of non-compliance might be an incredibly challenging task. After all, tracking information breaches is also tricky because organizations are charged for medical records, not for negligent acts.
How Do You Benefit from a HIPAA-compliant Help Desk Platform?
Implementing a HIPAA-compliant help desk system HIPAA-compliant help desk system in the organization’s IT operational framework facilitates business processes. It also helps react quickly and perform proactively to avoid security failures. Here are the four major areas where help desk software can aid a HIPAA-compliant organization:
- Physical safeguards. Organizations should restrict access to each healthcare storage system and facility to stay HIPAA-compliant. Thanks to the collaboration function, the software allows recognizing and reporting all entry restrictions or failures.
- Extra security. Companies can control the data access with user access safeguards and relevant entry validation tools. SaaS help desk systems cooperate with the IT departments to apply workflows.
- Asset management control. Some ticketing apps may include asset management functionality. That helps track IT assets and monitor the device’s life cycle. Key stakeholders are informed about the health of valuable devices.
- Device and network policies. Integrating your help desk software with server or monitoring apps helps avoid potential device failures. Because of predefined problem management methodologies, your organization can recognize threats quickly and take preventive measures.
How to Choose HIPAA-Compliant Help Desk Software?
The most critical moment of purchasing a help desk system is documenting all the feature needs and requirements. Below, we will indicate a few efficient steps to get started.
Step 1. Ask for input
Collect feedback on requirements from all people who will work with a new system. That lets you consider all stakeholders involved in the purchasing process. So, they feel ownership for the latest software. Besides, analyze the security requirements of help desk solutions, especially when selecting a cloud-based vendor.
Step 2. Prioritize your list of the system’s requirements
You might not find a vendor with the required feature-set under your budget. So such a prioritized list allows understanding trade-offs and different compromises your stakeholders are ready to make.
Step 3. State your case
After finishing the prioritization process, you must share a relevant list with your senior leaders. That helps ensure they understand the outcomes of this task correctly.
Step 4. Create a rating system
Of course, the requirements gathering process may become a challenging task. But ultimately, it allows creating an appropriate rating system. In turn, that helps choose the right help desk software for your company depending on your business needs.
Conclusion
Overall, the HIPAA-compliant help desk is an integral element of productive work. If your organization uses such software for managing processes, your personnel is provided with the appropriate security and data protection. Besides, implementing the HIPAA help center is among the most efficient approaches to preventing information breaches and losses.
Your business can always integrate relevant help desk solutions with different network and server monitoring functions. That lets your IT department realize the potential device failures on time. After all, offering high-quality client support and assistance means your company can improve customer loyalty without complications.
Frequently Asked Questions
HIPAA ensures the security and privacy of electronic PHI. Although they are distinct concepts, they work together.
Privacy specifies the rights individuals have to control the ways their PHI is used. Therefore, organizations need to keep PHI confidential and maintain it depending on the patient’s desire. Privacy covers different formats such as electronic, paper, and conversations. Meanwhile, providing the physical security of PHI is a critical component of this rule.
On the other side, security means specifying the administrative, technical, and physical safeguards related to electronic PHI. These safeguards must keep patient health information away from unauthorized access. Often, organizations maintain ePHI on disk drives, memory cards, or removable devices.
Companies within the healthcare industry should provide patients or representatives with easy access to their PHI. It also allows viewing and obtaining a copy of PHI during a 30 calendar day period after receiving a relevant request. When patients access their PHI, they can better take care of their health issues through self-monitoring. Besides, it lets them track their progress depending on treatment plans and fix errors in their health records.
- Data that doctors, nurses, or other healthcare providers mention in your health record
- Conversations that your doctors have regarding your care and treatment
- Data that your health insurance company has about you
- Billing data
The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (or HITECH) Act was established in 2009. It promotes adopting and using health information technology in the USA meaningfully.
The HITECH Act contains Subtitle D addressing the privacy and security concerns regarding the electronic transmission of PHI. In particular, that involves several provisions strengthening both civil and criminal enforcement related to the HIPAA regulations.
The appropriate help desk can perform self-evaluation to prove its compliance with HIPAA rules. That also includes holding all of the organization’s business partners to the same high standards.