What Is The HIPAA Act: An Overview

If you are remotely connected to the healthcare domain, then you might have heard of the HIPAA Act. The healthcare industry deals with the most sensitive data in the world. It often contains incredibly personal details about patients, from medication diagnosis to treatment plans. That's where the HIPAA Act comes into the picture.

The act protects the patient’s sensitive health information from disclosure in the absence of their knowledge or consent. While the HIPAA puts the patient’s mind at ease, it can be a major challenge for healthcare organizations and other HIPAA-related entities to comply with the investigation, hearings, and even penalties.

If you or your organization are subject to HIPAA, you might have many questions about the act. This blog will briefly review HIPAA. Let’s get started!

Understanding HIPAA Act
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) was enacted into US federal law in 1996 to set a nationwide standard for protecting patients' sensitive health information. The HIPAA Act is known for requiring healthcare organizations and other covered entities to protect patients' privacy and shield their data from healthcare fraud. The law also ensures that the healthcare industry is more efficient by standardizing care and making health insurance more portable. 

HIPAA consists of the following set of rules

HIPAA Privacy Rule: The privacy rules enact how, when, and under what circumstances PHI can be used and disclosed. The use of such information should be limited without the patient’s prior consent. Patients and their primary representatives are supposed to get a copy of the health records and request corrections.
HIPAA Security Rule: The security rule is designed to protect ePHI (electronic Protected Health Information). Everyone who has access to ePHI should follow it by performing risk assessments and audits to identify any threats to the data’s integrity.
Breach Notification Rule: The Department of Health and Human Services should be notified of any breach activity. If the breach affects more than 500 patients in a specific jurisdiction, a press release must be issued in the media outlet.
Omnibus Rule: The Omnibus rule is part of the HITECH Act (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) and encourages healthcare professionals to use Electronic health records. The rule prohibits the use of PHI for marketing or fundraising purposes without legal authorization.
Enforcement Rule: The Enforcement rule determines the appropriate penalty when a breach occurs. Depending on the circumstances, a fine will be predicted in terms of negligence or willful negligence. 
Who Must Comply with the HIPAA Act?
Organizations or individual professionals that qualify as covered entities should comply with the HIPAA Act. These covered entities are categorized as follows.

Health plans, including,
Health insurance companies
Health maintenance organizations
Medicare
Medicaid
Government healthcare programs

Healthcare providers who use electronic billing and other electronic modes of conducting business, such as
Doctors
Health clinics
Hospitals
Mental health practitioners
Assisted living facilities
Pharmacies
Dentists
Chiropractors

Business associates who work with or on behalf of the covered entities, including
Billing companies
Healthcare claims processing company
Health plan administrators
Lawyers
Accountants
Information technology teams
Records storage companies
Healthcare clearinghouses  (organizations that process health information from standard formats to non-standard forms and vice versa)
How to Become HIPAA-Compliant
Meeting the requirements of the HIPAA Act requires a combination of intricate internal processes, targeted external partnerships, and the use of the right technology. Here are some tips to help your organization become HIPAA compliant from a strategic level.

Develop policies—Develop and implement strong cybersecurity standards, policies, and procedures. They should all be HIPAA-compliant, documented, and disseminated throughout your organization.
Implement safeguard measures—Maintaining HIPAA compliance is about having robust PHI safeguarding measures, both digitally and physically. Ensure that only authorized personnel have access to physical PHI storage spaces. Implement strong password and log-in precautions for the digital records.
Risk assessments - As a part of HIPAA’s covered entity, your organization should undergo a risk assessment process every year. Risk audits will encompass the administrative, physical security, and technical security measures deployed by your organization to achieve HIPAA compliance. 
Investigate violations—Even though you're completely HIPAA-compliant, lapses occur. Therefore, if you suspect a violation, have a proper investigation in place to find the root cause and remediate the issue so that it will not persist further. 
Achieve HIPAA Compliance with Ease
Healthcare organizations have faced a year-over-year rise in data breaches, which comprise the data of millions of patients. HIPAA, as a regulatory compliance framework, introduced standards to protect such sensitive patient health information from disclosure. The law has evolved to mitigate the risk of digitization. 

Therefore, Ensure that you develop an understanding of the HIPAA Act and implement innovative technology to simplify your compliance with those rules. In this way, your healthcare organization can manage its Protected Health Information more effectively while maintaining compliance without compromising on efficiency.