In 1996, a law was enforced with the aim of protecting the privacy of patient records in hospitals and other healthcare organizations. This law is known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The law sets guidelines and rules for employees to follow in order to prevent misuse and fraud of private health information.

HIPAA has named healthcare organizations like hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, laboratories, and so on as “covered entities”. These covered entities are involved in the handling, use, storage, and retrieval of health information and hence need to practice certain safeguards to prevent unauthorized dealings. To practically put these safeguards in place, the employees have to be trained adequately. HIPAA mandates that all healthcare employees who deal with patient records must follow its guidelines.

Therefore, HIPAA exams are very essential for healthcare employees. Here are five advantages of HIPAA training and exams.

– Adequate training for employees of hospitals, clinics, laboratories and other healthcare facilities is necessary to teach them the importance of confidentiality of patient health records. The HIPAA guidelines are regularly updated and amended and continual training is necessary to ensure compliance by covered entities.

– Violations are very rarely intentional. Most often they occur due to ignorance or lack of knowledge on the part of the employee. An employee who does not know about HIPAA and its guidelines is more likely to commit a violation than one who is trained. However, in the end it doesn’t matter if it is intentional or intentional, all violations lead to penalties. Hence, training is absolutely essential.

– HIPAA exams and proper training will prevent such violations and instill in the employees a sense of responsibility.

– Most healthcare facilities today, store all patient information on computers. HIPAA training also covers computer education. They will be taught about the importance of passwords and encryption in protecting confidential information. This prevents unauthorized individuals from accessing the information and misusing it.

– When a violation occurs, HIPAA will issue a warning to that organization to correct the fault. In case violations continue to occur repeatedly, strict actions are taken. The health care organization may lose its license to practice. When proper HIPAA training is given to employees, it greatly reduces the chances of violations. Heavy fines and imprisonment are some other penalties imposed by HIPAA on non-compliance.

HIPAA training and exams can be completed online or in classrooms. The online program is more convenient, flexible, and highly popular these days. You can download all the study material for the website. General HIPAA awareness guidelines are also available on the HIPAA website for new healthcare employees.

As mentioned, HIPAA rules and regulations are subject to change regularly. Therefore, it is the employer’s responsibility to pass on information about these amendments to his/her employers via notices, newsletters, or seminars.

Healthcare organizations are taking a huge risk when they don’t provide proper training for their employees. The organization, employees, and patients are all in danger. Therefore, seeing how advantageous HIPAA exams are, it is good for healthcare employees to undertake them.

For more information, please visit our HIPAA Exams website.

For more information, please visit our HIPAA Exams website http://www.hipaaexams.com/index.asp

Author Bio: For more information, please visit our HIPAA Exams website.

Category: Advice
Keywords: HIPAA Exams