The guidelines of HIPAA on data breach is crucial for any healthcare organization to follow. This will help them protect themselves, their patients, and more. What does the HIPAA state?
HIPAA on Data Breach
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA. What is this? It is the law that provides patients with the right to access their health information and also provides them with the right to correct any errors. It is also a law that requires health organizations to protect the privacy and security of health information.
The HIPAA has set out certain standards that health organizations must abide by when handling and storing patients’ personal information. These standards include:
- Organizations must keep personal information confidential and secure. They should not share or use it except for specified purposes.
- Personal information should be kept only as long as it is needed. When it is no longer necessary, they should either destroy it. Or make sure that it is blocked so that no one else can access it.
- Organizations need to establish procedures for detecting security breaches, dealing with data breaches when they occur, and preventing breaches from happening in the first place.
- Health care professionals should establish policies for ensuring that they do not release more information than necessary to people who ask for medical treatment records of patients.
HIPAA on Data Breach Penalties
What are some of the penalties if an organization does not follow HIPAA? The following are the penalties:
- For voluntarily disclosing protected health information without proper authorization, up to $50,000 in fines may be levied against the violator.
- For using or disclosing protected health information without permission, up to $100,000 in fines may be levied against the violator. The fine may increase if more than 500 patients are affected.
- Jail term up to 1 year for criminal violations of HIPAA (knowingly obtaining individually identifiable health information without permission).
Why Follow HIPAA
Why is it important to follow the HIPAA on data breaches? It is important to follow this for various reasons. One, HIPAA is the law. If you do not follow the law, you will be penalized. If you are a small healthcare organization with limited resources, it might be difficult for you to pay the fine or deal with the consequences.
Two, it is in your best interest to treat your client’s information confidentially so they keep coming back to you for treatment or any other services that you offer.
Three, you need to protect yourself from lawsuits that are caused by data breaches that are not handled properly by you or your employees.
Lastly, if there are any privacy violations of your clients, they can sue you if their privacy is compromised due to the negligence of your employees or yourself.
Conclusion
HIPAA on data breaches has become an issue that all healthcare organizations must deal with because it is the law and it ensures patient privacy and security of their personal information. To ensure these, healthcare organizations must make sure that their employees strictly follow the HIPAA guidelines on data breaches when handling patients’ health information.
