To comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), your business must meet security, privacy, and encryption standards for the protected health information (PHI) used in its entire workflow. In this regard, the companies you hire as vendors, the people you employ whether for administrative or healthcare tasks, the software you use in your daily operations, and the handling of both physical and digital data, must obey HIPAA compliance standards.

Technology helps us manage, protect, and grow our businesses, but it also poses risks to information security, such as phishing, ransomware, and malware.

These attacks are common due to the value of data in the market. For instance, basic data like ID numbers, names, addresses, and phone numbers can be sold for $0.5 to $10, while more complex information like medical history can fetch up to 250 dollars.

Protecting customer privacy and cybersecurity is crucial across all industries, especially healthcare. Therefore, being HIPAA compliant involves keeping up with information protection updates.

If you're wondering how long it takes to become HIPAA compliant, we don't have a concrete answer for you. The timeline depends on how quickly you can develop your business model and workflow. This includes creating policies and protocols, appointing an internal oversight team, designing HIPAA-compliant data management software, and training all individuals in your organization.

Before proceeding, we suggest reading our article "Should I be HIPAA compliant?" so that you can take the self-test and find out if you are subject to these requirements. If you've already done so, continue reading to understand the steps needed to align with HIPAA.

In this article:

What is required to become HIPAA compliant? What information is considered PHI? What are the requirements for HIPAA-compliant software? Types of HIPAA Non-compliance Examples of HIPAA Non-compliance

Best practices for HIPAA compliance involve, along with a thorough understanding of the law and updates in security, focusing on the following:

Documenting all processes is also important for HIPAA compliance. This includes privacy and security policies, risk assessment procedures, audits, results, solutions, contingency plans, and staff training sessions.

We often get asked, "Does HIPAA require certification?". However, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does not issue certificates confirming a company's adherence to the regulation's protocols and requirements.

If you need more information to understand what HIPAA is, we suggest reading this article. Next, we'll delve into what protected health information entails, and then we'll move on to see the requirements that software must meet to align with HIPAA legislation.

Understanding what qualifies as protected health information is vital for ensuring its proper safeguarding. There are three types of PHI:

All of this data in itself is not PHI. It becomes PHI when collected by health plans, clearinghouses, and professionals, for the purpose of providing healthcare services or billing.

Developing software that adheres to HIPAA regulations requires ensuring that PHI is handled with security, privacy, and encryption measures throughout the entire process of collection, storage, and transmission. It's also essential for the programming team to undergo training in the regulations to ensure compliance with established protocols when working with this data.

While creating HIPAA-compliant applications and websites is a complex task, there are five key requirements that software must meet to comply with HIPAA:

Following this HIPAA compliance checklist can guide you through the essential steps and make your journey easier.

In order to understand how to comply with HIPAA, it may be useful to visualize concretely what actions are considered as non-compliance. This way, you can be more alert and mindful of protecting all instances of information circulation:

It's important to note that penalties for HIPAA non-compliance can be very costly. Depending on the seriousness of the violation, fines range from 100 to 1.5 million dollars. The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the United States is responsible for auditing and determining sanctions based on the severity and degree of negligence.

To provide a clearer understanding of situations that could violate the HIPAA Law, let's consider an example scenario.

Doctor Ana's secretary resigns, and the medical institution hires a new assistant, Sofia, without assessing her knowledge of data protection.

Ana hands Sofia medical orders that are already signed and stamped because her patients will collect them that day. Sofia leaves them on her desk throughout the day, visible to anyone seeking assistance.

At the end of the day, Ana notices the papers on Sofia's desk, explains why it's incorrect, and leaves for home.

Here, several errors occur. Firstly, the institution fails to ensure Sofia's proper training in HIPAA compliance, leading to subsequent mistakes.

The doctor trusts someone who lacks HIPAA training, granting access to PHI, including patient names, diagnoses, treatments, and social security numbers.

Sofia exposes papers containing protected medical data for extended periods, **potentially accessible to unauthorized individuals who could read, memorize, or even photograph that data. **

Lastly, Ana, upon recognizing Sofia's error, fails to report the potential data breach to the appropriate authorities.

We hope you've taken note of all the recommendations so that your business and digital products comply with HIPAA. If you have any questions, you can write to us at hola@xoor.io; and if you want to receive advice on creating a health application or website that complies with US or Canadian regulations, schedule a meeting here.