MSP Compliance Services and HIPAA:
What You Should Know
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a broad law that applies to any entity working in the healthcare space including doctor’s offices, hospitals, MSPs, and other healthcare vendors. HIPAA can be difficult to navigate as it is intended to apply to a variety of entities, stating that you must have “reasonably appropriate” protections in place to safeguard protected health information (PHI). Many healthcare entities need MSP compliance solutions to implement the advanced security solutions required to secure PHI. As such it is important to understand the basic terms used in the HIPAA regulation to ensure that you can best serve your healthcare clients.
Key HIPAA Terms Every MSP Should Know
- Covered Entities (CEs) is an entity that is directly involved in the treatment of patients, payment, or healthcare operations.
- Business Associates (BAs) are the vendors that service covered entities, including MSPs. BAs have the same obligations for HIPAA compliance as CEs.
- Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) is electronically transmitted, stored, or maintained protected health information (PHI). PHI is any individually identifying health information classified into 18 identifiers such as patient names, Social Security numbers, treatment information, or financial information, to name a few.
- Technical Due Diligence is when HIPAA-beholden entities apply reasonably appropriate measures to safeguard PHI. This also requires CEs to vet their vendors to ensure that they have adequate protections in place to safeguard PHI.
- Willful Neglect is when an organization knowingly fails to implement HIPAA requirements. Since HIPAA law is well documented, an organization cannot claim that they didn’t know that they were supposed to have certain things in place to be HIPAA compliant.
- Good Faith Effort proves that an organization has made every effort to adhere to HIPAA standards. Organizations must have completed their annual audits, have written policies and procedures, signed business associate agreements, and train employees.
How to Offer MSP Compliance Services
MSP compliance solutions should be full package offerings that cover the full extent of the HIPAA regulation. Adding Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) to your stack allows you to work with healthcare clients utilizing a complete HIPAA solution.
Compliance-as-a-Service includes:
- Six required self-audits
- Gap identification
- Remediation plans
- Written policies and procedures
- Employee training
- Business associates agreements
- Breach notification
MSP partners can offer their clients CaaS through Compliancy Group’s total HIPAA compliance The Guard™. The Guard is a cloud-based HIPAA compliance platform that stores all of the documentation HIPAA requires. It can be whitelabeled so that you can brand it with your organization’s logo.
However, we manage your healthcare clients for you; our dedicated Compliance Coaches will guide your healthcare clients through the entire HIPAA compliance implementation process. Your healthcare clients will be confident that they have done their “good faith effort” in regards to HIPAA. In addition, in the event of a HIPAA audit, we offer you and your clients full audit support, providing all of the documentation necessary to pass an audit. We have a proven track record, having never failed an audit on behalf of our clients!
Compliance-as-a-Service Has Never Been Easier!
Compliancy Group’s cloud-based software platform the Guard™ gives you the tools you need to change the way you do business. Compliancy Group’s Compliance Coaches™ guide you and your clients through our Achieve, Illustrate, Maintain™ methodology, simplifying compliance, enabling you to confidently focus on our business.
Adding Compliance-as-a-Service (CaaS) to your stack allows you to justify advanced security offerings, enabling you to standardize your stack and differentiate your firm. MSP partners have exclusive access to marketing and sales support teams. You don’t need to know anything about HIPAA compliance to take on healthcare clients, we manage your healthcare clients for you, allowing you to transition from an MSP to a Business Solutions Provider (BSP).
