Paul Vigario, Founder of SurfCT, on HIPAA Compliance

In recent years, HIPAA compliance in the dental industry has gained the same level of importance as that of medical organizations. In terms of Protected Health Information (PHI), dental practices are held to the same standard as the rest of the medical community and must adhere to the same level of privacy and security when it pertains to patient information. HIPAA rules regarding patient privacy, security, and breach notification fully apply to a dental practice if it is considered a “covered entity” under HIPAA.

Dental practices that meet the definition of a covered entity under HIPAA need to take the necessary steps to comply with all of the required regulations. These steps include:

• Appointing a HIPAA Privacy Official
• Appointing a HIPAA Security Official
• Creating a HIPAA compliance team
• Perform risk analysis
• Train workforce members (staff & employees)
• Develop policies and procedures
• Maintain ongoing compliance measures

An offices policies and procedures are an essential part to complying with HIPAA regulations. Dental practices should review their privacy and security policies, and alter areas that don’t meet with HIPAA regulations. HIPAA privacy regulations provide patients rights over their health information, including dental and billing records. According to the American Dental Association (ADA) patients have privacy rights to :

• Ask for a change in their records
• Ask a health care provider not to disclose their information
• Ask a healthcare provider to communicate with them confidentially, at an alternative location or by alternative means The healthcare provider is required to accommodate reasonable requests.

Additionally, HIPAA compliance requires dental practices to conduct security risk assessments and develop safeguards to protect electronically stored patient information. This ultimately protects the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic patient information from potential hackers and security breaches. Cyber-hackers, however, are not the only contributors to security breaches. Employee errors are common and can often be a major cause of a data breach. For security purposes, it is essential to have staff and employees correctly trained and well versed in HIPAA compliance regulations.

Keeping your practice HIPAA compliant can often be tedious, and without the help of a trusted 3rd party organization, can lack efficiency. A trusted organization, such as SurfCT.com, that specializes in dental technology and dental IT, can assist in meeting HIPPA regulations and improving digital workflow, patient privacy, and security.

SurfCT.com is a dental information technology company, founded by Paul Vigario. With many different services and solutions offered to clients, SurfCT.com specializes in areas such as dental technologies, digital workflow, marketing, cloud solutions, and HIPAA compliance. SurfCT.com’s technology solutions are revolutionizing general, cosmetic, and pediatric dentistry, along with oral surgery, endodontics, orthodontics, and other specialized dental practices.

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This article was originally published on paulvigario.info

About the Author

Paul Vigario is the CEO and Founder of SurfCT.com. As a college senior pursuing his bachelor's degree in Management/Computer Information Systems with a focus on healthcare technology at the University of Connecticut, Paul founded SurfCT, an international dental information technology firm. Upon graduating in 2003, he became president of the company. Since its foundation, Paul's leadership and technical prowess has helped expand SurfCT from a company that serviced dozens of clients in the northeastern part of the United States to a company servicing several thousand clients around the world.

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For more of Paul's insights, visit paulvigario.org and paulvigario.info