What is HIPAA?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1999 is a privacy and security law that safeguards protected health information (PHI) and also gives individuals authority over their medical data.
What are the rules of HIPAA?
Privacy and security standards are the two core provisions of HIPAA. HIPAA privacy rules set standards for the usage and disclosure of PHI. While HIPAA security rules established PHI safeguarding requirements and ensure businesses have suitable security measures to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing patient data. Breaching these rules may result in penalties or even jail time.
What are the top 4 HIPAA compliance challenges faced in 2022?
Increased telehealth services adoption has increased PHI electronic transmission. Restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 lockdown made it very difficult to receive care in person, which dramatically increased the adoption of telehealth services; Medicare telehealth utilization along increased 63-fold. Even after the COVID-19 lockdown, many people have continued using telehealth services as they are more convenient and affordable than in-person medical services. Telehealth is undoubtedly here to stay, but it also presents new HIPAA compliance difficulties as patients’ health information, which is needed to receive appropriate care, is transmitted using a telehealth platform. There are additional requirements to ensure the platform used is secured and sensitive information shared is protected from being stolen:
- The increased use of cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools complicated HIPAA compliance;
- The switch to cloud-based services from on-site systems is another way that HIPAA compliance is more challenging. Most businesses use a variety of SaaS tools to perform a range of tasks. For instance, numerous hard disk configurations have been replaced by cloud databases that operate on systems like Amazon Web Services. These SaaS technologies are often designed to automate operations. To ensure HIPAA compliance, it is crucial to understand how these automations work and assess processes for potential hazards to PHI.
Patients want more control over their health information During the height of the pandemic, fewer patients wanted to visit a doctor for fear of catching the virus. A positive side effect of this is that more people than ever are actively managing and taking personal responsibility for their health. Patients, for instance, demand more control over their health, which includes access to their medical records through personal devices. As a result, the accessibility and security of medical records must be carefully balanced. Although the trend toward greater patient engagement is excellent for individual well-being, it makes HIPAA compliance more difficult.
There are more attackers and threats to PHI than ever before Another significant threat to HIPAA compliance is the general rise in cybersecurity risks. Healthcare data breaches reached a new high in 2021, and as the volume of patient data being stored online rises, the number of data breaches is projected to rise further. Data breaches dispel patients' trust in the healthcare system and must be prevented at all costs.
At RxLess, your privacy is our policy
No personal information is ever required to use our data-secure platform to search millions of prescription medication prices online. At RxLess, we prioritize your PHI privacy and comply with all regulations. We guarantee never to share, sell, or otherwise disclose your private data to any third parties. Read our privacy policy for more information.
