What’s the Biggest Risk to Your Practice’s PHI?

It may be your own employees.

We can help your practice stay on top of the latest healthcare news, rules, regulations and trends.  Subscribe to stay current and up to date on important matters that will impact your practice.  (To subscribe to our blog ).

In February of 2017, over half of the health data breaches were caused by insiders.

Insider wrong-doing can be a result of disgruntled employees or just human error. When working with protected health information (PHI) regularly, it is easy for employees to forget the importance of confidentiality and privacy.

It’s also easy for employees to become careless with the physical safeguards of PHI.

How do you prevent a breach caused by employee wrongdoing?

Train your employees regularly on the importance of protecting PHI.

Make sure that employees know not to access PHI that they do not have a reason to access, as required by their job. They may not access PHI of friends or family.

Also train employees on physical safeguards and make sure to do spot checks to make sure they are following through. Employees should not have passwords in plain sight, and must log out of work stations when not at their desk.

If employees are able to take laptops or USB drives containing PHI home with them, technical safeguards must be in place.

Encryption is essential to protect PHI. If employees can access PHI outside of work, make sure that they are trained to report all devices to the HIPAA officers so that your practice’s inventory is up to date.

We help our clients train their employees and keep their inventory and risk assessment current.

In our next blog post, we will keep you informed of related issues.  To get this important information delivered directly to your mail box, 

Do you need help staying current and compliant with the latest laws, rules and regulations?  We can help. To contact us about your new government rules and regulations, your practice’s risk assessment, or about your other legal needs:  CLICK HERE.

P.S. If you or your patients are interested in consumer healthcare issues, check out myhealthspin.com.

Related Posts

Categories

Recent Posts

Getting Remarried? Here’s What You Need to Know
March 21, 2024
What is the Biggest Threat to Healthcare?
January 30, 2024
How Can I Simplify Estate Planning?
January 11, 2024
I Have a Trust. Now What?
December 7, 2023
Breaking: Corewell Health Breach
December 5, 2023

Subscribe

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Subscribe and get your FREE copy of Easy Guide to HIPAA Risk Assessments

An essential tool for all healthcare providers, Easy Guide to HIPAA Risk Assessments breaks down the requirements of HIPAA so you can successfully complete your required risk assessment. (an $8.99 value)

Thank you for subscribing to the Rickard & Associates healthcare blog. You'll receive a confirmation email shortly. After verifying your subscription request, you'll be sent to the "Easy Guide to HIPAA Risk Assessments" download page.