Adapting to the pandemic for the past year and a year has caused many healthcare clinics to rethink how and where they care for patients. Since clinics are often dealing with a more vulnerable population, but often require in-person services for better care, it was a question of who can be remote and who needs to be at the office. Additionally, how can telehealth be incorporated into their appointments? However, as soon as people start to work more from home, that brings more concerns up such as how can they ensure HIPAA requirements are followed and that staff has all the devices they need to do their jobs efficiently. In general, the typical concerns for remote work by healthcare workers include:- Unauthorized persons who live in the home potentially having access to patient’s Protected Health Information.
- Employees needing protected and backed up desktop and/or devices to protect private data and avoid violating HIPAA. This requires a lot of set-up.
- How devices should also be properly protected from malware with firewalls plus other security programs and equipped with a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
- Enforcing 2-factor authentication for any relevant logins or programs to protect from any security breaches.
- The potential for hard copy PHI being lost or read by an unauthorized person. Employees who have paper PHI should have a lockable file cabinet or safe to keep that information in.
- Checking how the wireless router traffic should also be encrypted for security. This will require using WPA2-AES, so the employees should be informed on how to do that. Most routers are already configured to that setting, but it should be confirmed.
At ORI, we have all of these security measures in place at our office, where our experts are working in-office to avoid any concerns such as the ones listed above. Since we work with clinics across the nation on their billing, which requires a lot of confidential information, we know the importance of following HIPAA and network security guidelines. If workers ever do remote work, they are accessing the same secure virtual desktop and we ensure they are properly set up and and workstations on monitoring. We care about protecting our clients and their patients, so security during these unprecedented times is a top priority.
Outsource Receivables Inc. offers expert outsourced billing services, and we help clinics across the nation increase their revenue and streamline their overall processes. Give us a call if you have been having issues with denied claims or a low revenue stream.