What the New HIPAA Compliance Means for Your Business

Is your business involved in any form of Healthcare, or handling sensitive documents of any kind attached to healthcare? If so, read on to find out what the revised HIPAA compliance deadline – which falls on Monday, September 23, 2013 – might mean for your business.

In January of this year, the US Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued a press release announcing the deadline for required compliance to a major revision to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). The new rules went into effect on March 26th, 2013, but the actual compliance deadline is the aforementioned September date – which is now next Monday.

In a nutshell, from an IT perspective, the major changes applied to the 1996 HIPAA ruling entail the increasingly digital nature of record keeping and transportability, and new security measures that businesses handling Personal Health Information (PHI) must provide. But - significantly - the new rules envelope a much wider sphere of businesses that must also be compliant, by adding the words “Business Associate” to the definition of possibly liable entities (you can see the legalese here).

Put simply, what this means is that if your business receives, processes, stores, or interacts with PHI in any way, you are also required to be HIPAA compliant by September 23. 2013. Cloud services, SAAS providers, IT companies that support hospitals, doctors’ offices, health insurance organizations, etc. - all of these fall under that umbrella.

Another thing that this particular revision addresses is a significant increase in the number of fines and penalties that can be applied for failure to meet compliance, as well as the amounts that can be assessed.

If you’re not HIPAA compliant already, you need to be - and fast.

Anchor Network Solutions offers the network and security services that you need to implement to become HIPAA compliant, and we’re here to consult your business in just how to get it done. Jacee Dobbs recently completed HIPAA security training and is Anchor’s appointed HIPAA Security Officer – which itself is a requirement for compliance. She would be happy to discuss with you the new legislation and how Anchor can help protect your business by becoming compliant with new regulations. Call Anchor Network Solutions now at (303) 904-0494 to make an appointment.


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