Probably.
All too often, vendor risks and contracts are not managed correctly.
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Business associates and cloud vendors continue to increase for healthcare providers, especially with the increase in electronic protected health information (e-PHI). It is essential to make sure that your vendors are protecting your data and your patients’ data.
How can you ensure your data is protected?
First, a good contract is essential to protecting you from HIPAA breach liability. Your contract should also cover topics such as:
- What due diligence should be performed;
- How often a vendor’s security performance should be monitored;
- How audits should be performed; and
- How the data is actually secured.
We help our clients negotiate effective vendor contracts and Business Associate Agreements to reduce liability for the healthcare provider.
With healthcare breaches on the rise, it is more important than ever to ensure that your data is secure.
Vendors should be able to tell providers what measures are in place to protect data. They should have strong technical controls, along with strong procedural controls.
Procedural controls include custom code, custom programming, and ensuring that the code and programming are from the same standards that you have.
Your Business Associate Agreement should also protect your data.
Remember – your Business Associate Agreement should have been updated since the Final Rule of the HITECH Act.
Business Associates are directly liable for breaches to the same extent as covered entities, but your Business Associate Agreement needs to clearly set out their liability.
In our next blog post, we will keep you informed of related issues. To get this important information delivered directly to your mail box, Click here to Subscribe
Do you need help with updating your Business Associate Agreement or negotiating contracts with third-party vendors? We can help. To contact us about your Business Associate Agreement, your vendor contracts or your other legal needs: CLICK HERE.
P.S. If you or your patients are interested in consumer healthcare issues, check out myhealthspin.com.
