Build brand trust among patients/clients with a HIPAA certification. 

Build brand trust among patients and clients with a HIPAA certification. 

Gain the perfect hand-holding experience your organization deserves with SharkStriker’s compliance management services for HIPAA compliance.   

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HIPAA

Understanding HIPAA compliance  

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a regulation that was passed in 1996 to protect health insurance beneficiaries from getting discriminated based on health conditions and to prevent companies from increasing premiums and deductibles.   

However, currently, HIPAA seeks to secure all sensitive healthcare data from unauthorized access and ensure that it remains confidential and safe from access by a party without the consent of patients. It recommends guidelines for information security and privacy of health information.  It requires organizations to report breaches to the Office for Civil Rights and take measures for incident response.   

Whom does it apply to? 

HIPAA regulations apply to all individuals, organizations, and institutions digitally transmitting any form of health information, subject to the varied standards published by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). All entities that are either – healthcare providers, healthcare plans, or healthcare clearinghouses are required to follow the guidelines issued by HIPAA.   

Benefits of HIPAA compliance 

A business experiences a lot of benefits when it implements all the guidelines issued by HIPAA. The following are some of the business benefits of HIPAA:   

Establishes a baseline cybersecurity posture
There is a rise in cyber-attacks in the healthcare industry. The industry witnessed 1684 attacks per week in 2023, with a 28% YoY rise in attacks. It puts organizations at an increased risk of losing sensitive patient-specific data assets, halting critical healthcare operations, and losing reputation due to breaches.
HIPAA recommends some of the best practices followed in the industry for overall posture readiness against modern threats and information security. Therefore, when an organization implements measures recommended by HIPAA, they get a significant readiness in the baseline cybersecurity posture with enhanced information security.
Prepares organizations for cybersecurity incidents
Another business benefit of HIPAA compliance is that it requires organizations to take proactive measures for incident response to keep all the information assets secure and to control damage in case of cyber incidents. For example, according to the guidelines, organizations must report all incidents to the Office of Civil Rights.
All the large-scale breaches that have impacted more than or less than 500 individuals must be reported within 60 days of discovery. Failure to report might lead to violations for which the organization might be penalized. These recommendations ensure that all the organizations under HIOPAA have taken measures for incident response. It reduces the risks of data theft, financial loss, and reputation after a breach.
Makes way for profit in business
As more customers start trusting the brand due to the assurance of privacy and security of their data, they start becoming more loyal to the brand, it decreases their reliance on finding new customers, and their revenue increases because of repeating customers.
Mitigates information security risk
The rules and guidelines stated in the HIPAA Security Rule require all healthcare-related parties to keep all the protected health information(ePHI) secure using the recommended administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. They are to keep them confidential and safe at all times.
They are also required to periodically assess all the risks from time to time to ensure the security of the most sensitive information. They are also required to document all the measures undertaken for compliance. All these best practices ensure that the organization has taken all fundamental information security measures.
Enhances brand loyalty and builds trust
The security measures, guidelines, controls, and policies recommended by HIPAA assist organizations to keep their posture prepared for modern threats. It assures information security of the most sensitive patient data, garnering trust that improves brand loyalty.
In a volatile healthcare sector, patients count on organizations based on their trust to render them secure healthcare services, improving brand trust is vital.
Assists businesses in standing out
HIPAA forms a globally recognized certification of compliance. A HIPAA-certified organization is trusted among the rest for the best practices and strict regulations followed for data security and privacy. It makes a HIPAA-certified business stand out from the rest.
Other benefits

Apart from the above business benefits, there are other benefits to being HIPAA compliant. They are as follows:

It nurtures a culture of trust through an increase in staff morale, leading to improved retention rates in the workforce.
It makes way for productive outcomes across different levels in the organization through systematic measures and documentation.
HIPAA’s Security Rule requires organizations to periodically conduct security and privacy training to close awareness gaps. Hence HIPAA improves awareness levels in an organization reducing the possibility of security breaches as a result of human error.

Consequences of non-compliance with HIPAA 

Any form of violation of the HIPAA would be subjected to penalization based on any of the categories that the organization falls under. History of violations, financial health, and degree of damage caused because of the violation are some general factors that result in penalization.   

For any violation that falls under Tier 1, a penalty of $100 per violation would be charged up to $50000. For all the violations falling under Tier 2, the penalty would be $1000 per violation up to $50000. For violations that fall under Tier 3, the penalty would be $10000 per violation up to $50000, and for every violation that falls under Tier 4, a penalty of $50000 would be imposed.   

SharkStriker Approach 

The following is the approach we follow for compliance management:  

  • 01
    Risk Assessment
    In the first step, we prepare a detailed scope of compliance through a thorough assessment of the IT infrastructure and an in-depth discussion with our client regarding their requirements. Based on the scope we conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of the status quo infrastructure, identifying the underlying risks and vulnerabilities and categorizing them as per their severity. Based on the assessment, identification, and categorization of risks and vulnerabilities, we prepared a detailed report comprising the recommendations to treat and remediate them.
  • 02
    Gap assessment
    Once we assess the risks and vulnerabilities in the cybersecurity posture, we conduct a compliance gap assessment across different levels. It helps us determine which areas are non-compliant areas and plan measures to treat them.
  • 03
    Risk Treatment plan
    This is where we prepare a detailed plan comprising all the policies, procedures, rules, measures, and controls that are to be implemented to treat the risks across different levels of the IT infrastructure.
  • 04
    Implementation
    It is the most vital step to compliance management where we implement the right set of expertise, resources, people, processes, technology, and all the measures as per the risk treatment plan.
  • 05
    Post implementation audit
    To make sure that everything is executed as per the risk treatment plan without leaving out any gaps, we conduct a post-implementation audit. If any gaps are found in the audit, we fill those gaps with the appropriate measures.
  • 06
    Training and awareness
    Since human error is one of the biggest factors that contribute to increased cyber risks and the leading cause of non-compliance due to data breaches and other attacks, we take steps to assess and fill awareness gaps across organizations.

What SharkStriker can do for HIPAA Compliance? 

Businesses today find it challenging to navigate through the highly changing business environment with the highly volatile threat and regulatory environment with the threats that keep evolving and the regulations that keep updating. On top of this, cybersecurity has become even more complex to manage with increased cost of solutions and heavy reliance on multiple vendors for cybersecurity.   

To keep up with the evolving threats regulatory bodies keep changing the guidelines and require organizations to take measures for readiness. However, businesses struggle with this due to the absence of a team that comprises expertise in cybersecurity and compliance.   

SharkStriker addresses that challenge by offering a dedicated team for cybersecurity and compliance that offers hand-holding and end-to-end compliance guidance at each step to make the compliance journey a whole lot smoother. We help businesses keep up with the latest compliance guidelines so there is no scope for gaps in compliance at all times.   

 

Enrich patient trust with HIPAA compliance. Leverage end-to-end services for compliance management.  

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