HIPAA

HIPAA

PHI breach

Avoid Text and Email PHI Breach Risk With Three Key Tips

You may be accustomed to hearing about the massive PHI breach instances that affect large healthcare systems, but they aren’t the only HIPAA violations that occur. In reality, small breaches take place every day often involving texts or emails that aren’t sent securely or that end up going to the wrong place. Communicating with patients […]
Published Date: March 18, 2024
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HIPAA violations

5 Common HIPAA Violations and 5 That May Surprise You

You probably already know that HIPAA violations are rampant across the country, and that as much effort as you may put into encryption software and computer passwords, some protected health information (PHI) may still fall into the wrong hands. What you may not realize is that HIPAA violations can happen in some very unlikely places. […]
Published Date: February 12, 2024
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HIPAA breaches

3 Recent HIPAA Breaches — And How You Can Avoid Them

Patient privacy may be at top of mind when you’re faxing and emailing medical records, but breaches can (and do) still occur every day. With 2023 in the rear-view mirror, it’s a good time to take a look at the HIPAA breaches that struck healthcare entities over the past 12 months. Check out three HIPAA […]
Published Date: January 1, 2024
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Online reviews

6 HIPAA-Compliant Ways to Respond to Online Patient Reviews

Your medical practices is like any other business, in that it has an online presence — which means that sometimes, online reviews are posted, and they aren’t always positive. However, responding to online reviews, even if you feel you’re simply defending your practice, can land you in hot water if your response accidentally violates patient […]
Published Date: November 21, 2023
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Healthcare data breaches

3 Trends in Healthcare Data Breaches – And How to Avoid Them

A review of the government’s most recent stats about healthcare data breaches reveals a bit of both good news and bad news. On the plus side, there have been fewer data breach attacks on US health care providers and systems so far in 2023. But the bad news is that when attackers strike, they breach […]
Published Date: August 29, 2023
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HIPAA violations

5 Common Front Desk HIPAA Problems and 5 Ways to Fix Them

Believe it or not, most HIPAA violations occur by accident, due to simple human errors—but that doesn’t mean they don’t qualify as violations. You could be fined if your practice lets a patient’s protected health information (PHI) fall into the wrong hands, whether your staff member did it deliberately or not. To reduce your practice’s […]
Published Date: July 5, 2023
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telehealth

How to Update Your Telehealth Security With the PHE Over

As most practices are aware, the COVID-19 public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023, and with it came the end of relaxed HIPAA rules for providers meeting with patients over telehealth. The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) has given providers a 90-day flexibility period to ensure telehealth systems and practices are in line with […]
Published Date: June 6, 2023
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Credit card on file

Compliantly Keep Credit Cards on File for Simpler Collections

Medical practices encounter dozens of touchpoints when patient collections can fall through the cracks. From patients who fail to show up for appointments and those who haven’t met their deductibles to people who simply have coinsurance to pay, the possibilities are endless. That’s why some practices choose to keep a credit card on file. While […]
Published Date: May 9, 2023
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encryption

To Encrypt or Not to Encrypt: Know the Encryption Pros and Cons

Encrypting your medical records, communications and documents can add a deeper layer of security to the protected health information (PHI) that you share and store. When you encrypt data, you’re obscuring it from unauthorized users, making it less likely to be seen by others. If you’re thinking of launching an encryption policy at your practice, […]
Published Date: April 26, 2023
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Telehealth regulations

HIPAA and Telehealth: Four Essential Ways to Stay Compliant

When the pandemic first began impacting U.S. medical practices in 2020, many providers scrambled to get their telehealth systems up and running to meet the telehealth regulations. Today it’s a completely different landscape, with telehealth one of the norms in modern practices and many organizations declaring that telehealth is here to stay. Even as these […]
Published Date: January 4, 2023
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