HIPAA Compliant Guidelines on Telemedicine

The HIPAA guidelines on telemedicine apply to any medical professional or health organization that provides remote services to patients in their homes or in community centers. The HIPAA Compliance Services assumes that ePHI can be communicated at distance if the communication is between physician and patient, as many people mistakenly believe.

If medical professionals or healthcare organizations wish to adhere to the HIPAA guidelines for telemedicine, they must also ensure that the communication channel used to communicate ePHI over the internet is HIPAA compliant. The HIPAA Security Rule contains this element and it stipulates:

• Access to ePHI should only be granted to authorized users.

• To protect the integrity and confidentiality of ePHI, a system of secure communications should be established.

• To prevent malicious or accidental breaches, a system of monitoring communications containing ePHI needs to be in place.

WHAT is HIPAA?

HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act which Congress passed in 1996. HIPAA-compliant software does the following:

• Provides the ability for millions of American workers and their families to transfer and continue health insurance coverage once they change or lose their jobs

• Decreases fraud and violence of health-care

• Mandates industry-wide health care information standards regarding electronic billing and other processes;

• Needs the protection and confidential handling of protected health information

HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules

After HIPAA officially became law, the United States Department of Health and Human Services began working on the Act’s Privacy and Security Rules. The Privacy Rules came into force on 14 April 2003. These regulations specifically considered that Protected Health Information (PIH) is any information in the hands of a covered agency relating to the provision of medical treatment, health status or payment that may be connected to a particular individual.

Instructions were also provided on how to divide this information, and that the individual’s permission must be obtained before their PHI is used for research, marketing, or fundraising. In addition, patients were given the right to hide their health-related information from insurance companies if their care is privately funded.

HIPAA’s Security Rules became effective two years later on April 21, 2005. These governed the use of electronically stored PHI (ePHI), and created three security layers: technical, physical, and administrative. Under HIPAA, adherence to those rules is required. They each have the intended purpose:

• Technical: To safeguard media containing PHI when electronically transmitted across open networks

• Physical: To restrict access to information storage areas and prevent unauthorized access

• Administrative: To put procedures and policies in place to delineate how an entity must comply with HIPAA.

Why Telemedicine Apps Must Be HIPAA Compliant?

There are many major reasons why telemedicine apps must be HIPAA compliant:

1. Keeping Patient Data Secure

Healthcare businesses can protect their patients’ sensitive data from any data breaches and unauthorized access. HIPAA Compliance will keep the data encrypted during the data transmission, storage, and access.

2. Building Trust and Credibility

HIPAA compliant shows a trust and commitment among users that their sensitive data is protected. And that builds the platform credibility and trust more to increase adoption rate.

3. Mitigating Legal and Financial Risks

If a platform is non compliant with HIPAA, then it can lead to several financial risks and legal consequences. To mitigate these risks, it is better to have a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platfrom.

4. Strengthening Telemedicine Ecosystem

Compliance also strengthens the telemedicine ecosystem. By encouraging other telemedicine apps to follow HIPAA compliance and make the healthcare ecosystem more secure.

5. Regulatory Compliance

One of the biggest reasons for following HIPAA regulations is because it is legal  ly essential to follow them. And every healthcare app must comply with the law to minimize the regulatory risk.

Source: https://www.dreamsoft4u.com/blog/hipaa-compliant-guidelines-on-telemedicine