Sometimes its hard to keep your staff HIPAA compliant. We will give you some easy tips to keep your staff HIPAA compliant, and help them understand their part in your HIPAA compliancy.
- Make sure not to share sensitive PHI with others who shouldn’t have access, including co-workers or personal acquaintances. Do not post on FB, Twitter, etc. Sometimes even the most innocent post could be a serious violation.
How to keep your staff HIPAA Compliant
- Avoid accessing a patient’s record unless needed for work or with written permission from the patient. No snooping! For various reasons, looking at a patient record could be very tempting. You may know the person and genuinely care about them, or they could be an ex boyfriend or girlfriend, and in some cases, could be a celebrity.
- Minimize occurrences of others overhearing patient information. Do not use a patient’s whole name within hearing distance of others. Try to be discreet. Don’t shout a patients name across a long hallway, or in a raised voice. Respect the patients privacy.
- Secure all paperwork containing PHI by placing in a drawer or folder when not in use. If you still have charts, cover them so patient names are not visible. Never leave records and other PHI unattended. Tidy up before you leave for the day, and make sure you don’t leave out papers that could read, lost or stolen.
- Close your PM/EMR not in use. You don’t want someone coming behind you and reading what you left up on the screen, or searching the records under your login. There is a reason HIPAA requires unique logins for each staff member. It is for your own protection.
- Do not email ePHI and have a good solid policy in place.
- Do NOT under any circumstances share passwords. The last thing you want is someone logging in as you! Protect yourself.
- Always use a cover sheet when faxing PHI
- Assign different levels of security clearance to specific people. Role-based security prevents employees from accidentally changing or seeing information that does not pertain to their specific duties.There are many other ways to keep your staff HIPAA compliant, but these are just a few basics that when adhered to, can save a lot of anguish later.
Thank you!
