Meeting healthcare compliance standards is complex, especially when you need to comply with multiple regulatory requirements. To ensure employees adhere to these standards, it’s essential to provide them with healthcare compliance training.
Healthcare compliance training for employees should cover topics such as:
- Proper handling of patient information
- Cybersecurity best practices
- Safety in the workplace
- Ethical billing practices
- Incident reporting procedures
- Policy and procedure review
Learn how the topics listed above should be covered in your healthcare compliance training program.
Compliance Training for Healthcare
Healthcare compliance training for employees should cover various regulatory standard best practices, including HIPAA, SOC 2, OSHA, and FWA.
1. Proper handling of patient information
A key area of HIPAA compliance requires patient information to be used and disclosed only when necessary to perform a specific job function. Healthcare compliance training for employees should discuss when an employee is permitted to access patient information and under what circumstances it can be shared with external entities.
A large percentage of healthcare breaches occur due to “insider breaches” – when employees improperly access patient information. Training employees on appropriate protected health information (PHI) handling is critical to preventing these incidents.
2. Cybersecurity best practices
Healthcare is highly targeted by hacking incidents and data theft. This is due to the value placed on health information. The information obtained from a healthcare breach can be vast enough for a threat actor to commit financial fraud or even steal a person’s identity.
Including cybersecurity topics in your healthcare compliance training can go a long way in preventing incidents such as phishing attempts, which are increasingly common and becoming more challenging to detect.
Employees should also be aware of the safeguards needed to protect sensitive data. Should they enable single sign-on (SSO)? Are they required to use multi-factor or user authentication technologies? Both HIPAA and SOC 2 compliance rely on employees upholding an organization’s security posture.
3. Safety in the workplace
Healthcare compliance training programs should include safety topics to meet OSHA safety standards. Depending on their work environment, healthcare compliance training for employees should include topics such as bloodborne pathogens, PPE, hazardous material handling, and sterilization procedures. OSHA training ensures a safe environment for employees and patients, minimizing exposure risks and preventing injuries.
4. Ethical billing practices
To prevent fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA), employees charged with billing responsibilities must receive training on ethical billing practices. Patient procedures should never be over-billed or misrepresented just to receive higher government or health insurance reimbursements.
5. Incident reporting procedures
Incidents are bound to happen. Whether it’s a breach, illness, or injury, employees must be trained to know what to do when they do. Healthcare compliance training should provide guidance for employees on who to report incidents to and when. Organizations failing to report incidents properly can be subject to costly fines.
6. Policy and procedure review
Policies and procedures guide employees on:
- Handling PHI
- Security safeguards
- Workplace safety
- Ethical billing
- Incident reporting procedures
Employees must review and agree to follow your organization’s internal policies and procedures to ensure compliance standards are upheld. Employees should be trained in all areas relevant to their job functions, and retrained when their role changes – or when you update your policies and procedures.
Healthcare Compliance Training Online
Healthcare compliance training programs that offer an online learning environment make it easier for healthcare organizations to manage the complex process of training employees.
Compliancy Group gives you a complete toolset for efficiently educating your entire workforce – from new-hire employee training to refresher training. All you have to do is add employees to the platform, and they’re automatically assigned all relevant training modules. Proof of completed employee training is easily accessible from your compliance dashboard.
- Course Library: Templated training courses and materials to meet compliance requirements.
- Assignment Management: Schedule and assign all compliance training, log employee attestations, and identify overdue training.
- Course Reminders/Notifications: Automated reminders for upcoming and past due dates.
- Completion Certificates: Personalized certificates auto-generated upon completion.
