The Importance of HIPAA Compliance For Your Practice
HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. By enforcing federal punishments, the Act restricts the leak and misuse of patient personal health information, in the attempt to protect the privacy of patients. Protected Health Information or PHI contains sensitive data (for eg. social security number) that requires protection from hackers and those who can use this data to cause financial and emotional damages to the patient.
When a medical clinic or hospital decides to work with an outsourced company, it is detrimental to make sure this company is HIPAA compliant. As the outsourced company is considered a Business Associate of the healthcare provider, the business associate will require access to PHI to perform functions or tasks on behalf of them. This is why working with a HIPAA Compliant medical billing company like Billing Partner Solutions, is necessary.
Certain standards are required for the use of medical codes in HIPAA compliant medical billing. As we know, these codes form the foundation of electronic claims. By law, the medical billers and coders are bound to create & submit claims using an approved coding format. At Billing Partner Solutions, our medical coders and billers are all thoroughly trained in HIPAA compliance and all our operations are in strict adherence to HIPAA regulations.
The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires all Covered Entities to have a signed Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with any outsourced Business Associate (BA) they hire that may come in contact with PHI. The Business Associate Agreement, is a written arrangement that specifies each party’s responsibilities when it comes to PHI. Being a HIPAA compliant medical billing company, Billing Partner Solutions prides itself on its diligence when it comes to enforcing a thorough BAA and executing all the required processes to ensure your patients’ sensitive data is used and looked after properly.
Remember, having a proper Business Associate Agreement in place is only one part of the compliance process. To be fully compliant, you must maintain current copies of all documents required by HIPAA, provide ongoing training for your staff, complete a Risk Assessment, and much more. Billing Partner Solutions will take care of all this and more, ensuring complete compliance for your business.
To learn more or get started, speak to our medical billing service experts today.
