Choosing a HIPAA compliance tool can be a challenge. With so many HIPAA apps and cyber-security tools on the market, trying to make sense of what exactly you need to address the full extent of the law can lead to misconceptions about HIPAA compliance.

So what can you do to make sure that your HIPAA compliance tool gives you everything you need to address the law–without skimping on the details or going overboard?

The most important thing to remember is that using multiple services to deal with your HIPAA compliance can be burdensome and only add to the confusion. The best choice is to use one HIPAA compliance tool to address the full extent of the law.

Using a single platform to address the full extent of the regulation can significantly decrease the time it takes to manage your compliance efforts, without resorting to switching from app to app and service to service.

Creating a truly effective HIPAA compliance program shouldn’t be a burden–which can often be the case when dealing with multiple services.

Using an all-in-one HIPAA solution is your best bet for protecting your business and addressing the full extent of the regulatory requirements.

Now let’s take a look at exactly what HIPAA regulation requires so you can get a sense for what your all-in-one HIPAA tool should be able to handle.

What is Required for HIPAA?

HIPAA regulation is broken into a number of different rules governing the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI). PHI is any demographic information that can be used to identify a patient. Common examples of PHI include a patient’s name, address, phone number, full facial photo, email address, insurance ID number, medical records, or Social Security number, to name a few.

HIPAA regulation is broken up into several rules that must be addressed in order to safeguard the privacy and security of PHI. These rules include the HIPAA Privacy Rule, HIPAA Security Rule, HIPAA Breach Notification Rule, and the HIPAA Omnibus Rule. Each of these rules lists a series of federally mandated national standards. These standards must be implemented by all HIPAA-beholden entities as outlined in the HIPAA regulation.

How Can I Address HIPAA?

The best way to address HIPAA is by using a total compliance solution. All-in-one HIPAA compliance tools are an effective way to track and maintain your organization’s compliance to ensure that the full extent of the law is being addressed.

Compliancy Group’s HIPAA compliance tool is called The Guard–and it’s one of the health care industry’s most trusted HIPAA compliance tracking solutions on the market.

With The Guard, users can safely and simply analyze, track, and manage their HIPAA compliance program in order to achieve, illustrate, and maintain their HIPAA compliance.

Below, we take a look at the bare minimum requirements that your HIPAA compliance tool must address in order to keep your business safe.

1. HIPAA Audits – There are six mandatory audits that must be performed every year within your practice. An effective HIPAA compliance tool should give your business the ability to vet your business against the HIPAA rules to find out if there are any gaps in your compliance.
2. Remediation Plans – Once your HIPAA audits have been performed, an effective HIPAA compliance tool should be able to build actionable remediation plans matched to the gaps in your compliance exposed by your HIPAA audits.
3. Policies, Procedures, Employee Training – An effective HIPAA compliance tool should allow you to build HIPAA policies and procedures, unique to the needs of your business. The Guard allows users to develop personalized policies and procedures, matched with employee training modules on each. Compliancy Group also offers a free HIPAA training course.
4. Documentation – Documentation is one of the most important elements of HIPAA compliance. As per federal regulation, you must retain all documentation related to your HIPAA compliance program for 6 years. An effective HIPAA compliance tool should document your progress with your compliance plan as you go, and store that documentation for at least 6 years.
5. Vendor Management – HIPAA has specific standards for the vendor management. The regulation states that before any PHI can be shared between your business and a vendor, you must execute a Business Associate Agreement to protect against liability and ensure that proper security measures are in place to safeguard that data.
6. Incident Management – In the event that your business does experience a data breach or consequent HIPAA violation, you must have a mechanism in place to document, track, and report that incident to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR). An effective HIPAA compliance tool must have the capability to document and track incidents as they occur, in addition to serving as a platform where employees can anonymously report any breaches they witness.

Looking for a Tool to Handle it All?

Compliancy Group gives health care professionals confidence in their HIPAA compliance with The Guard®. The Guard is a web-based HIPAA compliance tool, built by former auditors to help simplify compliance.

Compliancy Group’s team of expert Compliance Coaches® field questions and guide users through the implementation process, taking the stress out of managing compliance. The Guard is built to address the full extent of HIPAA regulation, including everything needed to implement an effective HIPAA compliance program that will help safeguard your practice from data breaches and fines.

With The Guard, health care professionals can focus on running their practice while keeping their patients’ data protected and secure.