{"id":8109,"date":"2018-09-11T22:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/?p=8109"},"modified":"2025-05-31T09:20:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:20:02","slug":"importance-of-hipaa-compliance-for-your-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.medicalbillersandcoders.com\/blog\/importance-of-hipaa-compliance-for-your-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Importance of HIPAA Compliance for your practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a physician, you start growing in your practice you will realize that you need to outsource part or all your billing routine tasks to be more productive and efficient at work. HIPAA compliance is not really an option. All medical practices and businesses must be compliant to stay in business.<\/p>\n

What Is HIPAA?<\/h2>\n

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) Act of 1996 is a law that intends to protect the privacy of patient information. It establishes national standards for processing electronic healthcare transactions and requires healthcare organizations to implement these.<\/p>\n

Why Your Practice Should be HIPAA-COMPLIANT?<\/h2>\n

Non-compliant of HIPAA regulations can cause a big amount of fines to your medical practice and the Medical Billing Service Company working with you. This also affects the reputation of you and outsourcing medical billing company also it can cost thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n

First step to take to become HIPAA compliant is to have a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) in place. BAA need to be submitted to all your vendors such as medical billing service<\/a> company. This will help your practice to be updated HIPAA compliant practice. As soon as all parties sign the BAA agreement they are liable to follow all HIPAA compliance rules and regulations. If they fail to do so then they are subject to civil and criminal penalties for action not authorized in your BAA.<\/p>\n

Recently in one of the USA state one facility violated HIPAA compliance. A nursing home patient\u2019s physician texted the patient\u2019s lab reports to nurse. Both the physician and nurse were the only authorized medical professionals to see the message. The centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services found the residential facility to be the violation. They used text message for the communication instead of the secure method of communication.<\/p>\n

Please find below is the Compliance Checklist (Ref: ComplianceHelper.com<\/span><\/a>)<\/p>\n