HIPAA Compliance Training and Certification Courses

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It is commonly misspelled as “HIPPA” when individuals have not taken training or completed HIPAA compliance initiative. It is a federal law passed in 1996 as an attempt at incremental healthcare reform. It was revised in 2009 with the ARRA/HITECH Act, meaningful use, in 2013 with the Omnibus Rule and additional minor changes.

Regulation’s goal is to reform the healthcare and Insurance industries by reducing paperwork & costs, simplifying administrative processes, burdens and improving the privacy and security of patients’ information with easy accessibility of their records. Enforcement rule and breach notification rule has to lead to fines and penalties due to a violation of rules.

Who Need to Comply with Privacy and Security Rules?

Covered entities under the regulation are Health Care Providers (Hospitals, Doctors, Clinics, Psychologists, Dentists, Chiropractors, Nursing Homes, Pharmacies), Health Plans (Health insurance companies, HMOs, company health plans, Medicare, Medicaid, etc), and Health Care Clearinghouse. Check if you are a covered entity under HIPAA regulations.

Select the Right Level of Training

It is very important to choose the right level of training. The HIPAA privacy/security officer CANNOT take basic level training (2 hours). They need at least 20+ hours of training to have a clear understanding of privacy and security rule requirements.  The basic reason for the non-compliance is that nobody in the company understands the complete requirement of rules.  As a result, they are unaware of policy and procedure requirements, contingency plans, risk analyses, and audits. HIPAA compliance training will provide knowledge to the compliance officers to make the company HIPAA compliant.

How to achieve Compliance?

Becoming compliant is a process and you are required to stay in continuous compliance. It is a misconception that once you become compliant, you are always a complaint company. Office for Civil Rights at U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has started enforcing the HIPAA rules which have led to many fines and penalties.

Use the free HIPAA compliance Analysis questionnaire to find out where you need help.