Speaker 1: Why HIPAA Compliance is Important for Healthcare Professionals This short video will explain why HIPAA compliance is important both personally and professionally for healthcare professionals. Why HIPAA is Unavoidable for Healthcare Professionals The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was passed in 1996 with the original objectives of improving the portability of health insurance, modernizing the flow of health information, and combating waste, fraud, and abuse in the health insurance and healthcare industries. It wasn't until some years later that the HIPAA Privacy Rule defined protected health information and standards were published to restrict uses and disclosures of protected health information. The HIPAA Privacy Rule also gave individuals the right to access their own protected health information and the right to request that their information be amended if found to be inaccurate or incomplete. To ensure individuals are aware of their rights, covered entities are required to provide patients with a user-friendly notice of privacy practices. The Security Rule was added to ensure covered entities implement appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to ensure protected health information is kept private and confidential. Since the passage of HIPAA and the publication of the Privacy and Security Rules, HIPAA has evolved to keep pace with the changing landscape of the healthcare industry. The subsequent Enforcement Rule, HITECH Act, Breach Notification Rule, and Omnibus Final Rule have influenced many of today's workplace practices for healthcare professionals. But these are not the only reasons HIPAA is important to healthcare professionals. HIPAA Compliance Helps Foster Patient Trust HIPAA is more than a collection of regulations that has to be complied with. When applied effectively, HIPAA creates and maintains a professional environment that protects every patient's rights and every patient's data through a series of best practices. Creating and maintaining a professional environment in which patients understand their rights and understand that their data is protected is important because patients tell healthcare professionals intimate details of their lives that few other people may know. If a patient is not confident that their privacy is being respected, they may withhold information, which could compromise the delivery of care, resulting in an avoidable deterioration of the patient's condition, with potentially long-lasting consequences for their health. Therefore, complying with HIPAA plays an important role in fostering patient trust and keeping patients safe. Better patient outcomes raise the morale of healthcare professionals and result in a more rewarding work experience. The Personal Career Risks from HIPAA for Healthcare Professionals Under HIPAA, healthcare organizations are required to have a sanctions policy and enforce its provisions if a member of the workforce fails to comply with policies and procedures designed to safeguard protected health information. Therefore, even if a healthcare professional unintentionally violates HIPAA, their employer must sanction them in order to avoid violating HIPAA themselves. Most sanction policies have a tiered penalty structure depending on the nature of the violation, the consequences of the violation, and the healthcare professional's degree of neglect. The penalties can range from verbal warnings to written warnings, suspension without pay, and termination of contract, loss of professional accreditation, and even law enforcement investigations and criminal proceedings. The involvement of law enforcement implies that there is sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal conviction for a violation of HIPAA, and many former healthcare workers have been given prison sentences for knowingly violating HIPAA. Even if a criminal conviction is not pursued by law enforcement, affected patients may have the right to take legal action under state laws. Even minor HIPAA violations can have negative consequences for healthcare professionals. It's a requirement of HIPAA that sanctions are documented, which can make it difficult for a noncompliant healthcare professional to get another job, and disciplinary action for noncompliance is reported in the media. This can have repercussions for an individual's personal reputation. Organizational HIPAA Risks for Healthcare Professionals Although HIPAA training is provided by teaching institutions, employers, and other healthcare organizations, the content of HIPAA training may not be sufficient to prevent unintentional HIPAA violations by healthcare professionals due to a lack of knowledge. This is because, under HIPAA, covered entities are only required to train members of the workforce on policies and procedures that relate to protected health information if they're relevant to the healthcare professional's role. Healthcare organizations are under pressure to do as much as possible with limited resources, and sometimes this will result in them only providing the minimum necessary training to comply with the HIPAA training requirements. Consequently, the potential exists for a healthcare professional to violate HIPAA if their employer has not developed a procedure that addresses a specific scenario, or if the employer has not trained the healthcare professional on a procedure because they don't believe that it's relevant to the healthcare professional's role. In addition, HIPAA violations can occur when shortcuts are taken with compliance to get the job done. If the shortcuts are allowed to continue, they can develop into a cultural norm of noncompliance that becomes an accepted practice. Healthcare organizations are aware that this happens, and where it's been identified, refresher HIPAA training should be provided to reinforce HIPAA compliance. However, as with policy and procedure training, it may be impossible to provide comprehensive refresher training with limited resources. While it could be argued that the employer is at fault for failing to train the healthcare professional or failing to provide refresher training in order to reinforce HIPAA compliance, organizations are reluctant to acknowledge liability for HIPAA violations attributable to a lack of training because it demonstrates negligence on their part for failing to identify the potential for a HIPAA violation in a risk assessment. As mentioned previously, a HIPAA violation places a demand on resources and can result in investigations by the Office for Civil Rights, reputation damage, and disruptions to the workforce. Organizations would rather not have this administrative overhead if it can be avoided, nor admit to an oversight in their risk assessments. Consequently, if you inadvertently violate HIPAA due to a lack of knowledge or because a cultural norm has been allowed to develop, you could be sanctioned, albeit unfairly. The best way to avoid this scenario and the negative consequences discussed previously is to ensure that your knowledge of HIPAA covers every area of your role and any roles you may be required to cover in the future. To achieve this level of knowledge, you should take advantage of third-party HIPAA training courses that provide you with an in-depth knowledge of HIPAA and its rules and regulations. Doing so will help make you a better healthcare professional, and being able to demonstrate that you've undertaken additional HIPAA compliance training can give you an edge in the job market and improve your future job prospects. Get trained on HIPAA. Protect your career. Given the choice, most healthcare professionals would prefer to work in an organization that operates efficiently to deliver better patient outcomes, where morale is high, and they can have a more rewarding work experience. HIPAA compliance cannot guarantee healthcare professionals will enjoy a more rewarding work experience, but it can contribute to operational efficiency, better patient outcomes, and higher morale. HIPAA compliance gives you professional peace of mind. Conversely, the failure to comply with HIPAA can have a negative impact across the board. But because of the many pressures healthcare organizations are under, HIPAA training is not always comprehensive or reinforced, potentially leading to unintentional HIPAA violations due to a lack of knowledge, which could have serious personal consequences for healthcare professionals. The best way to avoid the consequences of unintentional HIPAA violations is to take responsibility for your own knowledge of HIPAA, and then use that knowledge to work in a HIPAA-compliant manner in order to foster patient trust, keep patients safe, and get more from your vocation.