The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has various regulations that seek to protect the private medical information of patients. All the confidential information that is provided by patients will be stored and transmitted electronically and HIPAA stipulates that there be various safeguards in place to help prevent any misuse or abuse.
Hospitals, clinics and health insurance companies store hundreds of records of patients each day and most of them use medical transcription for the purpose of storing. When the records are documented, it is important that the patient information is not accessed by anyone other than those authorized for this purpose.
Top 5 HIPAA Regulations For Medical Transcription
If the protected information of patients is stored on tapes, it would be best to convert them into electronic format. When the information is stored electronically, you will be able to safeguard them better. You can use passwords to protect them. Most hospitals and health insurance companies employ medical transcriptionist to store all patient information in a systematic manner. These medical transcriptionists will need to be trained in the various rules and regulations of HIPAA so that there are no violations and there is better compliance. If any protected information of patients is transmitted electronically over the Internet there should be enough safeguards in place to ensure that it is secure. It would be best if the files are encrypted. The access codes to the files should be known only to those who are authorized to access the files. So even if an unauthorized person does manage to access the files they will not be able to open them without the codes. All the data that is entered and stored by medical transcriptionists will need to be password protected. This will ensure that there is no unauthorized access. The computers or workstations from where this information is stored should also be password protected. The passwords need to be changed at regular intervals. Most covered entities have policies in place that stipulate that the password need to be changed once every 30 - 60 days. Any amendments or changes that are made to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act should be passed on the employees through special training sessions or newsletters or meetings. This will ensure compliance of HIPAA.The workstations should be positioned in such a way that no one is able to see the screen and misuse the information that is displayed there. If the employee is not sitting at the workplace they will need to lock the computer so that any unauthorized access is prevented.
All the compliance standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act will need to be fulfilled by covered entities and their employees. If anyone tries to gain access to the computers or files there should be enough safeguards to sound a warning. It is the responsibility of the employee that all security and privacy rules of HIPAA are strictly enforced. There can be various penalties if the rules and regulations of HIPAA are not complied with.
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