Gilmore Blog https://www.gilmoreservices.com/blog/topic/compliance

Nurses are tasked with gathering patient information; thus, they are at the front of patient privacy and information security. Even with the extensive safety protocols in place in most doctors’ offices, hospitals, and other medical establishments, the staff must stay on top of information security to guard against the identity theft of medical records. It is doubly important for those working in smaller medical establishments, as many identity thieves believe – and hope – that information security is not as strong as in larger medical establishments.

If your business shreds documents in-house or does not shred documents at all, you should consider retaining a shredding company to help you prevent your customers’ information from being stolen or hacked from your computers. Shredding documents with an over-the-counter shredder might not create pieces of documents that are small enough, which means they are at risk of being recreated.

One of the most challenging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting changes to our working environments has been maintaining HIPAA compliance when treating patients remotely.

Complying with HIPAA law is a requirement for all companies in the healthcare industry as well as all medical providers. If you’re starting your own business and HIPAA law affects you, you might be feeling overwhelmed at the thought of adhering to HIPAA regulations.

Anybody who’s been paying attention to the news knows that data breaches have become increasingly common. Data thefts have affected large companies like Target as well as smaller companies around the world.

Companies who collect and store personal medical information on behalf of their clients must adhere to the regulations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA.) The law is there to protect people from being denied coverage as well as to shield their privacy.

Moving medical records involves far more than simply packing them into boxes and loading them onto a truck. HIPAA regulations require any company that stores and transports personal health information (PHI) to take precautions to ensure that the documents they maintain are protected from unauthorized access, theft, and damage.

Whether your files are in unorganized disarray — crammed into the storage closet for “safekeeping” —  or you actually face the threat of legal penalties, there’s no better time than now to do some document housekeeping. The new year is around the corner, so why not make document storage and compliance your company’s 2018 resolution?

As a small business owner or office manager, you take security seriously. Following a retention schedule and destroying documents when the time is right are just two ways you can protect your business and your customers from identity theft and other crimes. But, these steps are also critical to remaining compliant with federal, state, and local laws.