HIPAA & Cyber Security: How to Keep Your Practice Safe

HIPAA & Cyber Security How to Keep Your Practice Safe

HIPAA compliance and cyber security go hand in hand in today’s technological world. One of the most important things you can do to make sure your practice stays compliant with HIPAA regulations. They staying protected from the onslaught of cyber attacks is to have an up-to-date data backup system in place and be sure to test it regularly to make sure it’s working properly. Here are some tips on how to achieve these goals.

Data Breaches are on the Rise

A data breach is defined as the unauthorized acquisition, access, use, or disclosure of protected health information (PHI). In other words, it’s when someone who isn’t supposed to have access to your patients’ PHI gets their hands on it. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is in place to help protect your patients’ sensitive information from just such a situation.

But if you’re not already taking precautions against cyber security threats and considering how HIPAA applies to them, then you’re opening yourself up for a world of trouble.

Steps to Protect your Patients’ Confidentiality

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that requires covered entities to take measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all e-PHI they create, receive, maintain or transmit. This includes taking steps to identify and protect against reasonably anticipated threats to the security or integrity of the information. Here are five steps you can take to help keep your patients’ information safe. 1. Use strong passwords for all computers with access to PHI 2. Install anti-virus software on your computer and update it regularly 3. Make sure employees are well versed in cybersecurity best practices, like changing their passwords often 4. Develop an incident response plan for when an attack occurs 5. Encrypt PHI whenever possible.

Anti-Virus Software

As a healthcare professional, you are responsible for safeguarding your patients’ ePHI. One way to do this is by ensuring that all devices in your office are protected with anti-virus software. This software will help to prevent against malware and other threats that could put your patients’ information at risk. Plus, having up-to-date anti-virus protection will give you peace of mind knowing that you’re doing everything you can to keep your practice safe. You should also create a strategy for how to respond if the security or integrity of your data is breached. For example, what happens if someone tries to break into your computer system? Make sure that you have an emergency plan in place so that you know what steps to take next. The last thing you want is for an accident or mistake on your part to lead to the release of sensitive patient information! 

Encryption

One way to protect ePHI is through encryption, which is converting data into a code that can only be accessed by authorized individuals. This ensures that even if information is intercepted, it would be unreadable and unusable. There are many different types of encryption, so it’s important to choose the right one for your needs. The type of encryption you need will depend on what you’re trying to encrypt (i.e., emails or HIPAA-covered records). Some common types include AES 128, 256, Blowfish 448 and 3DES 168. You should also look at the length of time before an encrypted message expires after being opened – called the key lifetime – as well as how easy it is to decrypt with brute force attacks (which means checking every possible combination until they find the correct key).

Backups

The first step is to create backups of all of your ePHI. This way, if something happens to the originals, you have a copy to fall back on. You should create backups on a regular basis and store them in a secure location. In addition, you should encrypt all of your backups to protect them from unauthorized access. Some providers even use what’s called mirroring where they keep their backup copies in different locations so that they can recover data even if their primary office becomes inaccessible. For extra protection, some providers also use what’s called data encryption. Data encryption uses strong cryptographic algorithms (called ciphers) to scramble information into an unreadable format for storage or transmission. These same ciphers are used to unscramble the information when it needs to be read again.

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