IT Companies in Healthcare

Best Practices, Business Associates, HIPAA

1-800-HIPAA: Guide to Compliant Phone Calls

April 12, 2024 Gaurav Modi Comments Off

April 12, 2024 Brrring Brrring Brring! It’s your friends from Abyde calling! Pick up! We have some worthwhile tips and tricks to share with you today. While we all love a good chat on the phone when working with Protected Health Information (PHI), it’s key to keep things confidential. That’s why today, pick up our call and learn how your practice can make compliant phone calls. By following our tips, you’ll be a confident phone pro, ready to chat with patients while keeping their privacy a top priority. So, are you ready to answer? Let’s get started! Hello, it’s HIPAA In the digital age, there are numerous ways to connect and share information with patients. Reaching out to patients through the phone is still a common practice, but you need to be able to navigate it safely. First, ensure your phone systems are HIPAA-compliant before sharing any PHI. This includes end-to-end encryption, user authentication, audit control, automatic log-off, and other strong security features. When onboarding with a cloud-based phone service, make sure a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) is signed with the provider, ensuring accountability and liability when it comes to the protection of patient data. Listen, we know you might be itching to chat after your visit – you genuinely care about our patients and their well-being, but there aren’t a ton of reasons to call a patient. While HIPAA restricts casual chit-chat, some of the reasons to call a patient include: Additionally, if you are calling a Business Associate (BA), make sure a BAA is signed before communicating any PHI through the phone. When in Doubt, Leave it Out! When on the phone with a patient or a BA and you’re disclosing PHI, the Minimum Necessary Requirement is at play. As in the name, this standard means only the minimum necessary information about a patient’s health information should be disclosed. FCC, or the Federal Communications Commission has come out and given guidance on HIPAA-compliant phone calls. Keep it short and sweet! Phone calls should be less than 60 seconds or less than 160 characters in text length. And, don’t blow up any patient’s phone with calls! The FCC says patients should only receive three calls a week, or one text a day. To ensure patient privacy and clear communication, keep calls brief and focused. Before sharing any information, take a moment to verify the patient you are speaking with. Phoning Family While it’s only normal for a family to worry about a patient’s health, sharing this information is a different story. Under HIPAA, the patient has to agree for their PHI to be shared with family. Once again, only the minimum information required can be shared. However, if a patient is incapacitated, PHI can be shared with the family if it’s considered in their best interest. Once a patient is lucid again, the patient can retract permission for PHI to be shared with family. Dialing Up Patient Trust Phone calls are a common and effective way to quickly share information with patients. Like anything regarding PHI, it’s vital to stay compliant, keeping patient information secure. By properly handling phone calls at your practice, you’ll strengthen patient trust, improve communication, and reduce compliance risks with the right tools. Abyde can be one of those trusted tools, being a cloud-based solution that streamlines the compliance process. Abyde will assist you in having everything you need to be compliant, keeping you in check and creating a culture of compliance at your practice. To learn more about what your practice needs to do to be compliant, email info@abyde.com, call us at 1.800.594.0883, and schedule a consultation here.

Best Practices, Business Associates, HIPAA

Abyde Feature Week: BA | CE Portal

March 21, 2024 Gaurav Modi Comments Off

March 21, 2024 Let’s go! Day number four of Feature Week. We hope you’ve stayed tuned as we go over all the wonderful features that make Abyde the leading compliance software for Business Associates (BAs). We know that running your business can be tough, so we simplify compliance, so you can focus on being successful in your business. So far, this week we’ve gone over our intuitive Security Risk Analysis (SRA), our unique Scorecard, telling you what you need to do to be compliant based on your answers, and yesterday, our dynamically generated custom Policies and Procedures, saving your business countless hours in drafting documentation. How does this software get even better? Well, it does! Today, we’ll go over our state-of-the-art BA and CE (Covered Entity) Portal, where you can manage your Business Associate Agreements (BAAs). As we say here at Abyde, who does it better than us? NOBODY! BAA-lieve It or Not: The Importance of Business Associate Agreements A Business Associate Agreement, or a BAA, is an agreement between a BA and CE, or a Sub-BA, that outlines the roles and responsibilities of both parties when it comes to securing Protected Health Information (PHI). In simpler terms: a contract that spells out what each party needs to do when it comes to HIPAA compliance. One of the top HIPAA violations BAs make is not having a Business Associate Agreement in place. This agreement is required by the government, making sure both parties are aware of the responsibilities that come along with handling sensitive patient information. BAs must have agreements in place with all CEs and Sub-BAs they work with. Managing these agreements could be complicated without Abyde, being unaware of what needs to go into an agreement, getting it over to be signed and knowing when these agreements expire. But with Abyde, you don’t need to worry about this, simplifying the compliance process even more. Like how we dynamically generate custom Policies and Procedures, we create BAAs for you. All we need you to do is digitally sign. The BAA will be sent over by email through the software and will be stored in our nifty BA | CE Portal. Have an agreement expiring soon? We’ll notify you, giving you plenty of time to update your documentation so you can stay compliant. All BAAs are easily downloadable from the software and can be reviewed at all times. Have a partner who hasn’t signed yet? We’ll send reminders for them, too. With our revolutionary features, we think it’s clear: we want to make compliance the easiest part of running your business. To learn more about how you can manage your Business Associate Agreements with the Abyde software, email info@abyde.com and see it in action here.

Business Associates, HIPAA

Top Mistakes of Business Associates in Healthcare: How to Avoid Partnership Pitfalls

March 13, 2024 Gaurav Modi Comments Off

March 13, 2024 Hi Business Associates (BAs)! We know that working with healthcare practices adds the stress of securing the Protected Health Information (PHI) of patients. Running a business and protecting patients can be tough, but it’s a requirement under HIPAA. This shared responsibility is key to keeping your business compliant, allowing you to have a successful business, happy partners, and of course, safe patients. Here are some of the most common compliance violations BAs make, and how you can avoid them. Dude, Where’s My Business Associate Agreement? The first thing a Business Associate needs to do is sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) when working with a Covered Entity (CE). BAAs are a game plan for our business alongside healthcare practice. With a proper BAA, your organization has documentation of your shared responsibilities to keep PHI secure. If there’s anything you need to know about compliance, it’s to document everything! This BAA includes important information about permitted uses and disclosures of PHI, safeguards that the BA is expected to establish, Breach Notification requirements, training requirements and more. Now, this map of your partnership seems like a pretty easy thing to do, especially because it takes some liability off of your shoulders. However, one of the most common violations of HIPAA for BAs is not having this agreement documented. There have been millions of dollars in fines that stem from one simple thing: not having a BAA. It’s a simple step your business has to take, and with Abyde, we make it easy. With our software, we will draft a personalized BAA for your organization. All you have to do is sign it and send it off to your CE partner. Worried about losing this BAA? Don’t worry! It lives in the software having this documentation readily available for your business. Getting Schooled A Lack of training is another top mistake for BAs. Once again, as a BA, it is imperative to be aware and educated on compliance. While compliance training might not exactly be as exciting as a Rocky montage running around Philly, it is very important, and when done right, can be fun. Abyde nails entertaining training with our interactive material, simplifying complicated topics into top-notch training. Once again, training is vital for BAs, and when not completed, the consequences can be severe. When you violate HIPAA rules, like not training, the minimum fine is $137 per incident. Something like that can add up pretty quickly. Additionally, training is so important in promoting a culture of compliance, ensuring all employees know the essential role they play in your business. Breach Bandits Unfortunately, breaches are common in healthcare. While it is imperative to take proper precautions against breaches, like having an IT company’s assistance, controlled access, and more, it can still happen. Sometimes, no matter how hard you secure your business, breach bandits still find a way through your security. While it might happen to you, you can always control how you handle the situation. Before a breach even occurs, you need to take the proper cybersecurity precautions, and also complete a Security Risk Analysis (SRA). After a breach, it is required to follow the Breach Notification Rule of HIPAA. The Breach Notification defines what your business needs to do if it is impacted by a breach, including how it needs to be reported and how it must be shared with affected patients. The consequences of improperly handling a breach can be catastrophic, with major fines affecting your business. For example, the first ransomware attack ruled on by the OCR impacted a BA. This Business Associate was caught in the crosshairs of a ransomware attack and was fined $100,000 due to their lack of a SRA and having no policies and procedures in order. Now, dun dun dun! That’s where Abyde steps in again. Our software includes a simple SRA for your business to complete, going through all OSHA requirements in a questionnaire that takes minutes to complete. Well, you might now be wondering: What about policies and procedures? How do I quickly write those? I don’t know what I need? Well, the Abyde software has dynamically generated policies and procedures for your practice, drafted in seconds. Overall, your friends at Abyde know that running both a successful business AND ensuring the protection of patients’ data can be complicated, and that’s why we’re here to help. Abyde is the simple solution for all of your compliance concerns, with our intuitive software making compliance easy. To learn more about how Abyde can eliminate your business’ compliance worries, email us at info@abyde.com or schedule a consultation here.

IT in the White Coat: The Crucial Role of IT Companies in Healthcare

RECENT POSTS

Solutions

Resources

Company