Lack of HIPAA compliant medical forms can really affect your medical practice. This is because in case of a data breach, your firm will be in trouble for allowing unwarranted access to medical records of your clients. Various things may happen and lead to HIPAA violations. They include:

• Devices that contain unencrypted medical records of clients, such as laptops, smart phones, and USB devices, mysteriously disappearing or being stolen.
• Office break-ins This may result in private medical records going missing.
• Negligence- This involves sending private health information accidentally to the wrong clients.
• Social media posts by health care staff that exposes private health information of clients.
• Lack of ethics- The hospital staff may openly discuss personal health information of patients in public.
• The health care’s computer systems are getting hacked or experiencing malware incidents, ransomware attacks, or cyber attacks, thus leaving all personal patient records exposed to cyber criminals.

Now that you are interested in complying with HIPAA and getting the HIPAA forms online, what are some of its compliance requirements?

• Self audits- Your medical practice must always carry out frequent self-audit in order to keep track of all medical data and notice any infringements.
• Documentation- The organization must have a documentation policy in place to ensure that all health information of patients is in proper place.
• Incident management- The health care business must have an incident management plan. Sometimes incidences like theft or security breach are bound to occur. When they do, how will your organization handle the situation? What strategies have you put in place to ensure that client information will remain secure?
• Training of employees, policies, and procedures- When the health care is recruiting new staff, what are some of the guidelines that the organization follows? Will the new members have access to all private health information of patients immediately? Is there a period of assessing the workers and carrying out background checks? How trustworthy is the new staff?
• Business Associate Management- What kind of relationship does the medical organization have with its business associates? What amount of access is the business associates granted to the information of the health organization? Are there any security guidelines governing the relationship? What happens when there has been a business associate breach?

Continuously reviewing and improving systems, policies, procedures, training, and implementations can help to avoid or minimize all these violations.

Before you search for a HIPAA forms online builder, you must ensure that they are qualified and that they meet the HIPAA compliance standards. So, how will you ensure that your patients’ sensitive medical data and your business information are in safe hands?

Here are a few questions you should ask when evaluating any HIPAA medical forms builder:

Do they provide any form of business associate agreement?

A business associate agreement is a contract between you as the health care provider and the HIPAA medical forms builder. It outlines how the form builder uses the personal health information they collect, what policies they have implemented to protect the information, and what occurs in the event of breach of data.

Health organizations are different in size and practice. As such, ensure the business associate agreement is custom made to suit your medical practice.

Has a third party audited them?

Before you trust any form builder to set up medical forms online for your organization, ensure to check their audit records. Some form builders will claim to be HIPAA Compliant after completing their own internal audits and setting up some policies. It is always better to get a second opinion from a third party about the performance of the form builder. This will show you what kind of services to expect when they set up HIPAA medical forms online for you.

Do you have a security team?

Check whether the form builder has a dedicated security team that can respond to breaches immediately. You want to have all the sensitive data in your organization monitored 24/7.

What happens in the event of data breach?

Confirm who will bear the responsibility when a security breach occurs. This will be significant if you ever have a HIPAA violation incident. Make sure you are comfortable with the arrangement, and it is included in the business associate agreement.

You can check out Solution21, a web design agency that can build the HIPAA medical forms for your organization. With HIPAA compliant medical forms, you can ensure that your patients remain not only healthy but also protected.