Understanding HIPAA: Compliance, Penalties, and Best Practices for Your Team (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Does your team need to utilize HIPAA-protected information? If part of your duties includes processing or handling any sensitive patient data, you may be unknowingly misusing HIPAA-protected information, for which the penalties can be severe. In this episode of Business Solutions Academy, we're going to give you the gist of HIPAA and review violation penalties. What is HIPAA? HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This act aims to limit access to protected health information, also known as PHI, from misuse. There are 18 categories of PHI in total, ranging from names and email addresses to fax numbers, phone numbers, addresses, account numbers, health records, and much more. HIPAA policies are designed to keep these details from being lost or stolen. What are the penalties for violating HIPAA compliance rules? According to the American Medical Association, the penalties for HIPAA compliance violations can range from fines between $50,000 to $250,000, along with 1 to 10 years in prison, depending on the amount of compromised data. To make matters worse, penalties can occur as a result of what may seem like an honest mistake. According to one report, a representative from a cancer care group was found to be in violation of HIPAA rules after their car was stolen, a car that contained a computer that contained protected health information. This violation alone resulted in a $750,000 fine. Which employees need to be HIPAA compliant? Any employees with access to any of the 18 categories of protected health information of patient clients will likely need to agree to a HIPAA Employee Confidentiality Agreement. Though signed, this agreement doesn't necessarily mean their employees are off the hook for any HIPAA violations they incur, which makes a culture of organization-wide diligence crucial to remaining HIPAA compliant. Make sure to subscribe to the Business Solutions Academy, brought to you by J.D. Young Technologies on YouTube so you don't miss our next episode, in which we'll cover 14 tips for remaining HIPAA compliant, whether you're in the office or working from home. If you learned something new from this video, make sure to give this episode a thumbs up on YouTube. If you want to learn more about HIPAA compliance and hundreds of other business solutions-related topics, check out our resource center at jdyoung.com. Thanks, and we'll see you in Episode 2.