HIPAA Non-Compliance on the Rise- Are Your Communications Up to Date?

There is probably nothing scarier yet more important when it comes to healthcare than HIPAA. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was enacted in 1996 to ensure health information is private and protected for all.

This is important for everyone. But for businesses in the medical and healthcare field, there is a lot of worry around HIPAA compliance and the large fines and issues that could arise from potential non-compliance. For this reason, most companies have things like HIPAA compliance training, meetings and standards that must be kept to avoid violations.

What’s happening today, however, as more communications options make their way into our lives, is an increased risk of a breach – despite the benefits of advanced communications.

Sure UC - the ability to use email, Web chat, conferencing and other tools might make it easier for patients to manage care and boost productivity, but there are chances that changes to those channels too quickly, without the proper precautions in place, could lead to non-compliance.

An upcoming webinar, “Collaboration, Communications & the Increased Risk of HIPAA Privacy Breaches,” being held Tues., Oct. 4 at 11 a.m. CST, will discuss this in more depth and offer tips on what companies can and must do to avoid violations. There will also be two case studies to demonstrate how to avoid these issues.

In addition, the webinar will feature Mark McNeill, Vice President of Enterprise & Healthcare UC Solutions at ISI (News - Alert). McNeill will offer attendees an explanation of the types of collaboration platforms and tools available to healthcare providers and others and how to prevent possible breaches of HIPAA rules.