Medical practices across the United States are legally bound to preserve sensitive personal information and comply with HIPAA. Practices must exercise even greater caution by hiring remote healthcare staffing support to abide by these laws and help deliver exceptional patient care.

If your medical practice has yet to embrace remote healthcare staffing support solutions, this guide is for you. You’ll learn all about:

1. The cyber compliance protocols imposed on the medical practice community
2. Benefits of prioritizing HIPAA and PHI cyber compliance solutions

3. Tips on how to standardize the sensitive handling of PHI data for both in-house and remote talent

What is HIPAA?

The first acronym is HIPAA, also known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. It includes a series of national standards that enforce the security of sensitive protected healthcare information by organizations subject to the HIPAA Privacy Rule.

The primary goal of HIPAA is to assure patients that their personal information will be protected as healthcare practitioners use sensitive data to administer responsive healthcare. HIPAA’s Privacy Rule also applies to medical practice employees, including in-house workers and remote healthcare staffing talent.

What is PHI?

1. Patient or practitioner names
2. All relevant dates (admission, discharge, date of birth, etc.)
3. Phone numbers
4. Email addresses
5. Social Security numbers
6. Health plan identifying numbers
7. Existing medical records

There are four primary benefits of implementing remote healthcare staffing solutions that are protected by cybersecurity and compliance protocols.

Protecting PHI data is morally responsible and boosts your practice’s credibility
Cyber compliance is legally mandated, which protects your administrators from civil or criminal charges
By avoiding unwanted charges, you save potentially thousands in business fines
Guaranteeing PHI protection increases your practice’s professional reputation

A medical practice’s greatest asset is the trust it develops with both patients and employees. It takes years of hard work to earn the trust of both patients and employees — either in-house or via remote talent.

Medical practices that haven’t fully embraced modern technology view cyber compliance matters strictly as a business cost. Those who are ahead of the game and embrace the value of remote healthcare support services view cyber compliance as a valuable investment to be made.

Part of what makes an effective HIPAA and PHI compliance policy is a commitment by all employees to rigorous training and education. Both in-house and remote workers should avail themselves of educational resources so that they continuously abide by HIPAA compliance protocols.

The US Department of Health and Human Services provides up-to-date training materials on all matters related to HIPAA, the HIPAA Privacy Rule, and any topics related to PHI. HR managers should refer all payroll employees to those government resources as part of an onboarding and continuous training program. Knowledge is power, and it’s also one of the greatest assets to preserve your medical practice’s compliance with HIPAA protocols.

Monitoring your medical practice’s compliance with the HIPAA Privacy Rule requires solutions that enable regular audits of its performance. Between transitioning away from paper record-keeping to encrypted software and even pre-paid VPN accounts for remote talent, there’s no shortage of ways to monitor and enforce compliance.

There’s also the option of using a centralized workforce management platform, such as Edge, to add another layer of compliance protection. All entities that work with Edge receive a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) signed by Edge, affirming that a third-party service provider will oversee and maintain your PHI in full compliance with HIPAA standards.

You are welcome to click and learn more about the Edge BAA along with other compliance monitoring solutions.

Ultimately, the best way to build a remote healthcare staffing workforce that remains in compliance with HIPAA and PHI protocols is to invest in the right technological solutions. Platforms that provide robust data security and privacy protection capabilities support all medical practices in their efforts to maintain regulatory compliance.

To learn more about how to bring your medical practice into the modern working era while maintaining the highest cybersecurity standards, download the Edge security guide today.