AMA advises members to perform a security risk assessment

Hot off the American Medical Association (AMA) Wire, a service that provides news and information to AMA members, is a reminder that the HIPAA audits will resume this year. The AMA Wire reminds members that the HIPAA audits will start as early as this summer

If you haven’t conducted a privacy and security risk assessment recently, now’s the time to do so. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plans to implement random Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) audits to monitor compliance, beginning as soon as later this summer.

The AMA Wire provides helpful steps that organizations should take to prepare for the audits and protect patient information

Your practice should take these three steps to protect against a breach in security and the loss of patient information:

• Educate your staff about the importance complying with HIPAA requirements
• Ensure all electronic patient information is encrypted when in transit and at rest
• Perform a privacy and security risk assessment for all health care information technology, not just your electronic health records

The key takeaways here are that you should perform a security risk assessment, train your employees and encrypt your data!

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