IPlum app offers HIPAA compliant secure communications including HIPAA compliant calling HIPAA compliant text messaging and HIPAA secure voicemail. See our HIPAA compliance checklist if you need guidance on this.
5 Tips To Hipaa Compliant Mobile Devices
Widespread use of mobile devices is rapidly changing how industries do business and therefore what they must do to ensure compliance with the law.
Cell phone hipaa compliance. A HIPAA compliant phone system is an absolute necessity for medical professionals who need to send these patient communications on a regular basis or who use text to touch base with colleagues or other healthcare facilities. An area in which the ruling still holds a little ambiguity is HIPAA compliant automated telephone calls to patients. Come up with a process carry it out and document it.
We spoke with Stacy Cook of Barnes Thornburg LLP to discuss how providers can maintain HIPAA compliance as the usage of mobile devices increases among staff and patients. HIPAA Compliance in the Smartphone Age. The overarching act is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act which was enacted in 1991 and set regulations on telemarketing calls pre-recorded messages and the use of automatic dialing systems.
That means that they fall under the HIPAA Security Rule without exception. VoIP phone services are viewed by HIPAA authorities as electronic transmissions. To comply with HIPAA regulations anyone associated with a healthcare system who uses mobile technology to receive transmit or store PHI must have certain security measures in place.
Today HIPAA compliance is still a critical statute that healthcare organizations and business associates must observe to protect patient data. And while a data breach or HIPAA violation could be the result of a deliberate act of a person intentionally trying to harm you or your practice it may also simply arise from the loss or theft of your mobile device. HIPAA encryption for iPhones and Android phones is just one element of the Security Rule that has to be addressed in order to be compliant.
For a phone call to be HIPAA compliant covered entities must state their name and contact information before addressing the purpose of their call. The use of mobile devices in healthcare is not prohibited by HIPAA. With photographic and data transmissionstorage capabilities mobile devices present providers with new legal challenges particularly maintaining HIPAA compliance.
In addition to making smartphones HIPAA compliant features on TigerConnects secure messaging solution include delivery notifications and read receipts which reduce the amount of time wasted on follow-up calls to see if a message has been received and a Do Not Disturb autoreply which healthcare professionals can use like an Out of Office email responder to. Consequently secure messaging solutions also meet the criteria listed in the administrative physical and technological safeguards for communicating PHI in compliance with HIPAA. HIPAA compliance is a process not a static thing and the HIPAA Security Rule is big on organizations performing ongoing risk analysis to consider where they contact electronic PHI and how theyre protecting it.
HIPAA and HITECH security is a process for the healthcare insurance medical and therapy industries. The FCC has also provided recommendations for the length of phone calls and text messages 60 seconds for a phone call and 160 characters for a text message. The health care industry is no exception.
Health care providers other covered entities and business associates may use mobile devices to access electronic protected health information ePHI in a cloud as long as appropriate physical administrative and technical safeguards are in place to protect the confidentiality integrity and availability of the ePHI on the mobile device and in the. Although going into great detail about what constitutes an autodialing device the FCC ruling does little to reconcile HIPAA compliance with the 2013 ban on telephone calls and text messages to mobile phones from an automatic telephone dialing system. Include our VoIP services in the.
Phone calls made by healthcare providers are regulated under multiple acts and governing bodies. Healthcare workers are much more mobile in their day to day lives as modern laptops cell phones tablets and portable medical equipment create an always-connected ecosystem to cloud computing services. Unauthorized access to sensitive information on your device would be considered a HIPAA Privacy violation.
As the use of portable devices to practice medicine rapidly increases health providers must ensure adherence to. Are Phone Calls HIPAA Compliant. As such we are required by HIPAA to.
