Blog Overview

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are designed to provide privacy and security for electronically protected health information (ePHI). Dental HIPAA compliance served as the cornerstone in the security of a dental practice.

The implementation of dental HIPAA compliance has helped the dental practice to remain in lockstep with the increasing pace of technology and the trend towards the reliance on electronic health records. Dental HIPAA compliance plays a major role in dental practice to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of all e-PHI. Dental HIPAA compliance rules cover how patient healthcare and payment data is created, used, stored, and shared. And also ensure data security.

Why Is It Important to Demonstrate HIPAA Compliance?

As data breaches are increasing, it is very significant to provide assurance when it comes to protecting ePHI. Than any other industries healthcare industry suffers more data breaches which is more than 24% as of the year 2017. So it is very important to give assurance to your patients that your practice is committed to the protection of ePHI and other sensitive data. Exposure to ePHI can put their financial health at stake and your practice experience reputation fallout. As a sense of duty and diligence, your practice needs to be committed to protecting ePHI. Dental HIPAA compliance is a standard that strengthens the brand of your practice.

How Can You Effectively Demonstrate HIPAA Compliance?

Let us discuss the ways to prove your practice has achieved Dental HIPAA compliance:

• Self-Assessment

This is the easiest, most expedient and least expensive way of providing proof. It does not require any third-party verification or auditing services. HIPAA auditing team can be laborious without the assistance of a well-versed professional. Self-attestation can become a long and arduous process for everyone involved. Some dental practices do invest in specialized software that lays out all the policies and procedures. But is still time-consuming and stressful for the staff. Self-attestation is manageable for your team and is accepted in the healthcare industry.

• Third-Party Audits and Attestations

Here trusted auditing firm conducts an assessment of the potential risks and vulnerabilities to the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability of ePHI collected by your dental practice. This may be the easiest way to prove HIPAA compliance. The expertise and instant assurance make this path prove highly attractive to busy dental practice even with a greater initial cost.

Purchase Software to Achieve HIPAA Compliance

If you find the self-assessment of proving HIPAA compliance to be too risky and third party audit method to be too expensive, you may consider buying your software to ultimately ensuring HIPAA compliance. There is a lot of software available. But such software programs can be also expensive and you need to seek regular updates through the product’s manufacturer. This may cost more money over time.

Does your practice need assistance becoming HIPAA compliant?

We have security experts and Cytek safeguards to help you maintain dental HIPAA compliance within your practice. Take your free risk assessment today. Call us now and schedule a consultation, so we can talk to you about your needs and concerns when it comes to protecting ePHI.