There are various HIPAA control requirements, including administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. To help organizations implement and sustain these safeguards, HIPAA is made up of four primary rules. Those rules help healthcare businesses enhance and deploy HIPAA controls throughout their organization.
Meeting HIPAA control requirements is crucial when protecting patient data and avoiding costly penalties. Understanding and implementing these controls can be challenging without the proper guidance and tools.
With the right compliance software solution, you can easily build a comprehensive HIPAA access control policy and ensure your organization meets the necessary security standards without sacrificing the safety of confidential healthcare information and data.
What Are HIPAA Controls and Why Are They Needed?
The administrative, physical, and technical safeguards mandated by HIPAA ensure that patient health information, more specifically electronic protected health information (ePHI), is safeguarded from unauthorized users, breaches, and misuse of data.
HIPAA controls are significant to the security of a business because they:
- Prevent data breaches
- Mitigate cybersecurity threats
- Provide a balance between access and security efforts
These controls cover everything from how your team will access patient records to the HIPAA access control policy for preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your data.
Here’s a closer look at a few of the key reasons why these controls are needed and what they accomplish.
Preventing Data Breaches
In 2023 alone, there were two data breaches per day in the U.S. Unfortunately, data breaches in healthcare are alarmingly common, and the number of patient records that are exposed seems to be rising. The primary causes for this are human error and inadequate system security measures, which contribute to an organization’s vulnerability. HIPAA controls are the first line of defense against these types of risks.
Improving Data Integrity
Another critical role of HIPAA controls is to ensure the integrity of your data. This is done by limiting access, monitoring system usage, utilizing multifactor authentication, and enforcing more secure coding reviews. Data integrity refers to the accuracy and consistency of data over its entire lifecycle. HIPAA controls, such as audit trails and other procedural steps within system security, help ensure that data is never altered without prior authorization.
Mitigating Insider Threats
While external threats like cyber attacks are already a significant concern, there are other threats to consider, such as those that arise internally. Whether malicious or accidental, they can still cause widespread damage to patient data and confidential information. HIPAA controls help mitigate these risks.
Organizations should enforce strict access policies and monitor who interacts with the patient data they collect. Using the right compliance software also provides compliance professionals with policy templates to supplement their adherence efforts.
How to Comply With HIPAA Access Control Requirements
HIPAA access control requirements are a subset of the overall security rules that safeguard an organization’s PHI. Consider what your business needs to prepare for to become and remain compliant with HIPAA controls:
- Train employees based on compliance needs
- Consistently monitor data files
- Properly verify user identities
- Maintain audit trails
Businesses are finding it more difficult to conduct successful security risk assessments. This is due to a wide variety of reasons, from large vendor networks and limitations on the resources they can access to a lack of knowledge of the risk their business faces.
Some healthcare organizations may not have access to the right risk assessment tools, especially depending on the size of the company. This is a primary reason that more organizations prioritize using compliance software.
Navigating HIPAA Access Control Requirements
Complying with HIPAA controls, particularly HIPAA access control requirements, can be complex and can also take away many resources from other operations. Compliance software provides a comprehensive HIPAA program that guides organizations to meet each requirement.
