10 Ways Many Dental Offices Are Breaching HIPAA

The following is a guest blog post by Trevor James.
If you work in the health/dental/medical space, you already know that HIPAA violations are a serious matter. Fines today for not complying with HIPAA laws and regulations are a minimum of $100-$50,000 per violation or record and a maximum of $1.5 million per year for violations of the same provision. Some violations also carry criminal charges with them, resulting in jail time for the violators.
Many dental offices are breaching HIPAA laws without realizing it or have employees doing so without their knowledge.
If you’re a dentist, office manager, or someone who’s been tasked with ensuring HIPAA security within your group, here are the 10 most common ways dental offices are breaching HIPAA regulations so your practice doesn’t make the same mistakes as others.
1. Devices with patient information being stolen
This is a common HIPAA violation for dental offices. It’s important to ensure the devices your dental office uses, like USB flash drives, mobile devices and laptops, are carefully handled and securely stored to prevent them and the patient information on them from being stolen.
2. Losing a device with patient information
Along the same lines as above, it’s also easy (and common) for an employee to lose those kinds of devices. USB flash drives and mobile devices are smaller items, so it’s easy to misplace them. When that happens, it’s easy for sensitive patient information to end up in the wrong hands.
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Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 28, 2014 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: John Lynn Tags: HealthCare IT HIPAA Breaches HIPAA General Dental HIPAA Breaches HIPAA Dentists Source Type: blogs