In today’s world of digital health care, it is essential for health providers to protect the information of their patients from unauthorized users and organizations. Although there are important aspects of the telehealth business such as improving patient care, maximizing profits, and decreasing denied claims, what really matters is HIPAA compliance.Many health services may decide to outsource their billing processes to other companies. However, not every billing company offers a good standard of security and compliance. If the right choice of partner is not made, the facility may struggle with many problems, such as exposing vulnerable patients’ information, wasting money, harming its reputation, and disrupting operations.

In the event of looking for the medical billing company, one of the first questions to ask should not be how much will it cost or how much it collects, but rather:

What is HIPAA? Why is It Critical?

The law was created to ensure the security and privacy of the patients’ health insurance documents. There are lots of medical forms which are classified as PHI, including:

The medical records of patients
Insurance information
Billing information
Lab reports
Information about prescriptions

Healthcare providers risk facing penalties even if a data breach occurs through a third-party billing company if they have hired one that is not compliant with HIPAA regulations or if they have disregarded security measures.Therefore, it is crucial to find a billing company that meets HIPAA criteria.

Consequences of HIPAA Violations

HIPAA violations can have dire legal and financial consequences.

Possible penalties include:

Yearly penalties that can amount to millions, depending on the need for compliance
Plans of corrective action and government monitoring
Filing of civil lawsuits
Criminal charges for intentional misuse of healthcare information
Significant damage to the company’s reputation

In addition to the financial costs associated with those breaches, data breaches have the potential to disrupt the company’s operations.

Real-Life Case and its Implications

Data breaches have occurred in several healthcare establishments.

Anthem Company incident illustrates that.UCLA Health’s Cyber attack
UCLA Health has had a cyberattack that took away millions of patients’ data. This has come with expenses relating to law and damage to the organization’s image.
Small Private Practices at Risk
HIPAA enforcement is not only on major health institutions. Similar fines have been levied on small medical practices for failing to shred patient information and encrypt devices.
All institutions regardless of their sizes are supposed to guarantee security of patient information.

Common Reasons of HIPAA Breaches

The most common cause of healthcare data breaches is that they happen because of rather simple mistakes than high-end hacking.
Here are most common causes of HIPAA violations:
Unencrypted mobile devices
Misleading passwords
Sending out patients’ information via email without encryption
Incorrect disposal of patient records
Not giving employees HIPAA training.
Internal errors are usually the real reason of breaches.
Questions to Ask Medical Billing Company

Before outsourcing the medical billing and revenue cycle management, make sure to ask the following questions:
Is your company fully HIPAA compliant?
Do you sign the Business Associate Agreement (BAA)?
How do you encrypt patient information when it is being disposed of or transmitted?
How do you restrict the employees

Ensure Your Practice’s Safety with a HIPAA Compliant Billing Partner

Your patients have faith in you with their private information. Keeping that faith intact means you need to do more than provide quality healthcare; you need to have solid internal billing and administrative operations. While choosing a medical billing service, make sure you go deeper than just researching their success rates and prices. Investigate their level of commitment towards being HIPAA compliant, ensuring cybersecurity, and offering training to employees.Choosing a compliant and skilled medical billing company decreases risks, ensures compliance with legal regulations, and provides peace of mind to your employees that the customer information is being handled with care.

If you need a HIPAA-compliant medical billing and revenue cycle management partner, make sure to check out Total Medx and see how they can help your practice operate much more efficiently while securing what matters the most.