In the chaos of COVID-19 many businesses are still unsure of when they can return to “normal” operations, which makes compliance more critical than ever. Our partners at The Compliancy Group, an organization that focuses on making compliance easier for companies, reported that in December 2020 more than 4.05 million people had their sensitive information breached due to hacking and other IT incidents. They also reported that over 50% of these hacks were done via email scams. You can read their entire report here.
If your organization handles sensitive health information in anyway, then you are required to comply with HIPAA regulations. The protection of Personal Health Information (PHI) is critical. Breaching this information is not the responsibility of the malicious attackers, but rather the companies housing the data. Therefore, financially the only group impacted by this violation is you and your organization. The fines related to mishandling this data are hefty and negatively affect your business’s reputation as well as your bottom line. In 2020, over $13.5 million dollars worth of HIPAA violation fines were handed out due to failure to comply with HIPAA. Is your organization willing to pay if found non-compliant?
With so many people working remotely in 2021, many businesses struggled to keep up with HIPAA. When your employees are in your secure office space, keeping them compliant is easy – but outside of that office security threats are much more prevalent. Whether it is keeping your family from looking at your computer screen or simply handling documents, your employees could be non-compliant with the HIPAA security rule without you even knowing. Even worse, some of the security measures you may have had in place within the office may be irrelevant with people working from home.
Our team is gearing up to help our clients stay within the parameters of the law, and in doing so we are partnering with The Compliancy Group to host a series of webinars this year. We want to be sure that everyone is educated on, new laws, best practices, and the best ways to stay compliant. We will be joined by Paul Redding – VP Partner Engagement & Cyber Security at The Compliancy Group – as he keeps us all informed on how to stay ahead of HIPAA requirements.
If you are interested in downloading a free HIPAA Compliance Check List please visit our site. We are happy to help you and your company stay compliant, stay ahead of the process, and stay focused on your business.
