Protected Health Information

Ransomware in Healthcare practices
Abyde News, Best Practices, HIPAA

When Ransomware Meets HIPAA: Turning a Cyber Scare Into a Plan

November 6, 2025 No comments yet

November 6, 2025   The lights flicker. Your EHR freezes. A skull-and-crossbones pops up with a countdown, and your team can’t access patient charts. Appointments grind to a halt. No, it’s not a scene from a horror movie you watched on Halloween; it’s what a real ransomware attack can look like for a healthcare practice. Ransomware is a growing threat in healthcare because it goes after what you rely on most: access to patient information. Attackers lock you out of your own systems and demand payment, all while putting Protected Health Information (PHI) at risk. The good news? With the proper safeguards, training, and a plan in place, your practice can respond quickly and minimize the damage. What is a Ransomware Attack? Ransomware is malicious software, or malware, that deliberately seizes records in exchange for a payment, usually demanding enormous amounts of money.  The Change Healthcare Breach, the most significant HIPAA breach on record, highlighted the devastating scale of these attacks. This single incident impacted nearly 200 million Americans! It involved a $22 million bitcoin ransom paid to the hackers after the initial attack, as well as billions of dollars in downtime and recovery. That’s how serious these incidents can get. When PHI is worth 10 to 20 times more than a credit card on the black market, it puts healthcare providers in the crosshairs of malicious bad actors. A credit card is like having a single slice of pizza, and who stops at one? A patient’s PHI gives hackers the whole pie. Instead of cheesy goodness, it’s a compliance nightmare for your practice.  Ransomware attacks have increased rapidly in the healthcare sector in recent years, with a 264% rise in large breaches caused by ransomware crimes. The big problem is that these threats are Pandora’s box, incredibly difficult to contain once they’ve begun.  How can I stop a Ransomware Attack?  You can’t guarantee it will never happen, but you can take the proper steps to minimize risks significantly.  First, ensure staff are adequately trained on email safety. We hate to break it to you, but that “Free vacation when you send an Apple gift card!” email is probably too good to be true. Most attacks start with a suspicious email that’s opened by unknowing employees. Ensure staff are aware of common phishing signs and know how to report suspicious activity correctly.  Also make sure that all proper technical safeguards, such as firewalls and encryption, are current and fully operational to secure patient data. Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all logins to provide an additional layer of protection. While your password acts as a door, MFA acts as a key, keeping patient PHI secure.  No practice is 100% safe, but a solid Disaster Recovery Plan empowers your team to actually know what to do if ransomware hits and gives actionable items like quickly taking the infected device offline and involving your IT team immediately. And if you’ve got good backups in place, you can protect your patients and get your practice back on track much faster!   Keeping Your Practice Ransomware Ready Ransomware isn’t just a one-time jump scare; it’s an ongoing risk. But when you combine staff training, up-to-date safeguards, MFA, and a thorough response plan, your practice goes from vulnerable to prepared. The best part? You don’t have to figure it out alone! Smart compliance solutions can help you stay on top of requirements, document your actions, and support you if something does go wrong. Ready to learn more? Meet with a HIPAA compliance expert today

HIPAA Minimum Necessary Standard
Abyde News, Best Practices, HIPAA

Patient Privacy 101: The Minimum Necessary Standard Explained

August 7, 2025 No comments yet

August 7, 2025   Under HIPAA, healthcare practice staff must keep a secret. This means everyone with access to patient data, from doctors to receptionists, can’t share any information about a patient. While it might feel enticing for a nurse to tell their friends about an old high school bully coming into their practice with a rash, and revenge might feel sweet, it’s a total HIPAA no-no.  One of the pillars of HIPAA is the Privacy Rule, which dictates when and if Protected Health Information (PHI) can be shared. The Privacy Rule keeps patient data secure and allows the best care, with patients knowing their information will remain confidential.  However, sometimes information needs to be shared. This is where the Minimum Necessary Standard comes in. With this rule, healthcare providers and their Business Associates can share PHI if it’s vital to complete work tasks.  Safeguarding confidential information upholds the integrity of your practice and allows patients to feel comfortable when addressing health concerns. Your practice must follow HIPAA to keep patient data safe and secure.    What is the Minimum Necessary Standard? All in the name, the Minimum Necessary Standard defines how HIPAA-regulated entities can share information. Depending on the situation, more information might be warranted to be shared compared to others.  The easiest way to explain the HIPAA Minimum Necessary Standard is to compare it to ordering pizza. When you order a pizza for delivery, you only provide the minimum necessary information: your name, what you want to eat, and your address. You wouldn’t share details like what you ate for breakfast or the names of everyone in your house because that information isn’t needed for the delivery. In a healthcare setting, while not as cheesy, the same principle applies. A front-desk receptionist, for example, needs access to a patient’s basic information to confirm an appointment. They don’t need access to the patient’s full medical history. The minimum information required for their job is scheduling and patient identification, not the patient’s back surgery details. The HIPAA Minimum Necessary Standard ensures that everyone, from the front desk to doctors, to even your vendors, can only access the PHI they absolutely need to do their job. In some situations, more information can be shared more easily. These exceptions include disclosures for treatment purposes, such as when a doctor needs a patient’s complete medical history to provide proper care. Your practice can share PHI with the patient directly, or someone with explicit authorization from the patient, or in a public emergency. Finally, disclosures may also be required by law.   Simplifying the Minimum Necessary Standard Your staff must uphold the security of PHI. By following the HIPAA Privacy Rule, you stay compliant and build a successful practice. When patients feel confident that their records are safe, they’ll trust you and feel empowered to choose your practice.  It’s a serious responsibility. With the right solution, staff can be appropriately trained to handle health records. Smart software can streamline training for your practice and provide dynamically generated policies and procedures for all staff to access and review whenever they have a question regarding the use of PHI.  Meet with a compliance expert today to learn more about protecting your practice and patients.

HIPAA Protected Health Information
HIPAA

HIPAA Protected Health Information

May 7, 2021 Comments Off on HIPAA Protected Health Information

May 7, 2021 Most healthcare professionals understand many of HIPAA’s regulations are all about safeguarding protected health information (PHI), but there is much confusion in attempting to define what PHI actually is and is not. We all know that things like social security numbers and bank account information should be kept under lock and key but it’s not just the obvious details that could be used maliciously. These are only two examples of the 18 different identifiers that constitute PHI and all it takes is for just one to fall into the wrong hands for your practice to have a HIPAA breach on yours. So ensuring that you’re fully safeguarding this sensitive data starts with having a complete understanding of what needs to be protected and knowing why it’s so important that you do.  What are PHI and ePHI? PHI can be defined as any personal health data created, transmitted, received, or stored by a covered entity and their business associate (BA) that could potentially identify an individual. Now between the many documents, forms, records, and other communications that your practice handles on a daily basis – PHI is more than likely featured on most if not all of these things. As you probably already know, and the 86% of providers currently utilizing Electronic Health Records (EHR) can attest to, many of these communications are done so electronically and therefore contain electronically protected health information (ePHI). So whether the information is transferred, received, or simply saved on paper or in an electronic form – if it consists of any one of the following identifiers of PHI, it needs to be properly protected: Why does it need to be protected?  So now that you know what fits the bill of PHI – it’s important to know why and how it should be protected. To hackers and other individuals with malicious intent, a healthcare practice containing patients’ sensitive information is a gold mine considering a single medical record can be valued up to $250 on the black market. Now to put that into perspective, financial and banking information is only valued at $5.40 – so why such a large price tag on PHI? Well, unlike a credit card – if your sensitive health information gets into the wrong hands you can’t just cancel the card or change your information. Healthcare data breaches are hard to detect, and once that sensitive information is out there, it’s much more difficult to get back.  How should it be protected?  As you can see from the 18 identifiers listed above, PHI comes in many different shapes and sizes and requires more than just having locks on your doors and passwords on your computers to keep out of harm’s way. HIPAA law outlines how PHI should be protected in its Security and Privacy rule requirements – providing administrative, technical, and physical controls that are all essential for securing patient data. While these safeguards help to protect PHI when it’s being stored and handled within your practice, encryption is key to maintaining data integrity when it’s being sent or received and proper disposal is crucial when the PHI is no longer needed. So now that you know the what, why, and how – let’s talk about the who. With patient complaints and data breaches continuing to take on all-time highs, it’s more important now than ever to ensure that everyone who works with your patients’ PHI is doing so properly. Best protecting your patients means conducting regular HIPAA training for all staff members, having signed business associate agreements with all third-party vendors, and maintaining a complete compliance program that meets these government requirements and encompasses all the necessary safeguards.  While understanding exactly what PHI is and how it should be protected might still be a bit confusing, thanks to Abyde, it doesn’t have to be! Meeting HIPAA standards and safeguarding PHI has never been easier with Abyde’s revolutionary approach and team of HIPAA experts there to support you every step of the way. Schedule a complimentary one-on-one consultation to learn more! 

How to Dispose PHI
Best Practices, HIPAA

So You Have PHI to Dispose of – Now What?

February 26, 2020 Comments Off on So You Have PHI to Dispose of – Now What?

February 26, 2020 The days of simply shredding paper records and files to dispose of Protected Health Information (PHI) are behind us as the use of technology continues to become more prevalent within the medical industry. Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, practices are required to implement the proper administrative, technical, and physical safeguards when it comes to protecting patient privacy. This rule dictates that covered entities are responsible for implementing and maintaining these policies.  For many practices, disposing of electronic or regular PHI in the proper way may be daunting. Instead of always shredding a paper file, practices now have to follow recommended methods to dispose of data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These methods include: Without a simple checklist to follow, it is difficult to guarantee that the best measures are being taken to protect this secure data. In fact, covered entities and business associates have been hit with hefty fines for not disposing of PHI properly. RELATED: IS YOUR PRACTICE MEETING HIPAA DATA SECURITY REQUIREMENTS? DOWNLOAD OUR HIPAA CHECKLIST AND FIND OUT! In one well-publicized example, a shredding company left thousands of patient files unlocked and unguarded for anyone to take. The shredding company, as well as the covered entity whose files were left unsecured, were both hit with monetary settlements. Another incident of improper PHI handling left almost 10,000 individuals impacted. In this case, a pharmacy disposed of an electronic device used for customer signatures without properly wiping the device first. This exposed a vast amount of PHI including patient names and signatures along with prescription numbers and medication names.  Many of these incidents occur due to the lack of policies set in place by the practices for business associates and other outside parties handling patient data. Another case that led to monetary penalties totaling a whopping $140,000 resulted from a medical billing company disposing of 67,000 patient records in a public dumpster.  Unfortunately, improper disposal of PHI is the source of many data breaches and HIPAA violations. Implementing the correct policies for disposal of PHI is paramount, and each employee must be trained on proper PHI disposal to ensure that your practice is taking every step possible to keep protected health information secure. 

Want an inside look at how the OCR operates? Join Iliana Peters, former Acting Deputy Director for HIPAA at the HHS OCR, and Abyde experts for a live discussion.

 

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