Healthcare companies must have a Telemedicine HIPAA compliance plan to ensure they adhere to all the guidelines and requirements outlined in the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.
Every healthcare provider and patient benefit equally from telemedicine, making it very simple to communicate without having to physically meet or travel to a hospital or clinic. Even though establishing a Telemedicine app can be difficult and costs between $40,000 and $55,000, such apps have shown to be helpful for medical professionals.
Many medical practitioners think transmitting ePHI (Protected Health Information) is safe when the patient and doctor are speaking directly. This is why telemedicine and HIPAA compliance are related.
How to establish HIPAA compliance for telemedicine services
You may ensure that your Telemedicine services comply with HIPAA in several ways. Here are just a few of them:
- Ensuring that all web forms are encrypted is one approach to guarantee HIPAA compliance for telemedicine.
- Making your website HIPAA compliant for Telemedicine providers may also involve securing it with an SSL certificate.
- Making sure that third-party service providers sign a HIPAA business associate agreement (BAA) with a company that develops telemedicine software also helps to ensure HIPAA compliance.
- Your Telemedicine services can be HIPAA compliant by implementing secure user authentication, securing the servers where the data is stored, and protecting the location of the servers.
Why is it crucial for Telemedicine providers to follow HIPAA to protect the privacy of their patients?
Nowadays, everything is digital, but that also means that data theft occurs. Data theft is a significant danger to privacy and internet businesses. Telehealth must be HIPAA-compliant to ensure that sensitive patient information is safe in the hands of healthcare providers trained in HIPAA.
Thanks to telemedicine HIPAA compliance, patients can request their medical information whenever they want.
Tips for establishing a safe and compliant Telemedicine system
You can take the following actions to make sure that your system complies with HIPAA:
- Securing the Connection
One of the essential elements for ensuring HIPAA compliance in telemedicine is a secure connection between a doctor and a patient. Everything needs to be secure, whether by phone or video chat, messaging, or both. It is preferable to avoid using apps like Zoom, email apps, or Skype to establish a connection between a doctor and a patient because these third parties do not ensure Telemedicine HIPAA compliance.
- Authentication of Users
Access to PHI should only be granted to those who have been given permission. Keep patient information private and secure; never disclose it to another doctor or anyone else without the patient’s permission.
- Log-off automatically
Most of the time, users must remember to log out of their computers. Unfortunately, anyone could misuse information as a result of this. Therefore, automatic logoff after a certain amount of inactivity can improve data security and stop data exploitation.
- Choose a person with solid IT knowledge
Appoint someone with IT experience to secure the protection of patient data because they will be able to monitor everything much more efficiently and effectively. In addition, the administration already has a lot of duties and may need help managing all the data correctly; therefore, it is crucial.
The pros of using a Telemedicine platform that complies with HIPAA
Numerous advantages will result from combining Telemedicine and HIPAA compliance software and implementing it in the healthcare system.
Below are a few advantages of telemedicine that comply with HIPAA:
- It ensures a patient’s confidence in the healthcare organization is one of the most important benefits of Telemedicine HIPAA compliance. Patients will feel safer and more at ease knowing that the institution has their personal medical information completely protected and secure in this way.
- Another advantage of following the Telemedicine HIPAA compliance policy is that firms won’t have to deal with any penalties because failing to follow the rules can result in fines and legal action that, in some situations, poses a severe threat to the organization’s financial stability.