If you work in a health care facility that transmits, stores, or has access to medical information from patients you do need to comply with the standards that are set up by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). All employees that have access to the confidential medical data must be trained. This will ensure that employees follow all set up standards and stipulations. If your employees are trained, they will understand the compliance and fewer violations and fines will be accrued.

Most employees are aware of the forms that patients sign listing out their rights in regards to medical information transfer and safekeeping. However, there are some employees that may interpret information wrong. To understand the guidelines of HIPAA and the amendments that transpire on a regular basis, ongoing training needs to be conducted and set up. HIPAA training should occur on a semi-annual basis.

– Noncompliance of HIPAA regulations and rules will result in penalties that may include monetary punishments as well as prison time for the offender.

– Patient records are often transferred electronically. Employees and health care workers need to be trained on the computer software that transmits this information. Passwords need to be highly secure and only those trained and authorized should have access to these passwords.

– Training for new health care employees needs to begin within thirty days of hiring. These training sessions can be on weekends or during normal working sessions. Usually a group of employees are trained in batches to help with question and answer periods.

– If an employee has committed violations, it is important to retrain that employee and make sure that all rules and regulations are understood and adhered to. If continual disregard for training and following rules occurs, they employee may be terminated. Prison time can be given to any employee who gives out patient information without express permission.

– Generally, training sessions are only one hour. If your employees choose to take their training online, they will need to print off a certificate when they have completed the computer course. This certificate should be kept in the employee’s human resource file.

– Refresher courses need to be scheduled on a semi-annual basis and plenty of time for questions and answers needs to be given. Make sure all employees understand the HIPAA rules and regulations.

Each HIPAA training session should be designed to ensure that medical data of patients is safeguarded and that health care employees know this. It is good customer policy to make sure that patients understand that their information is protected by all health care employees in the clinic or hospital.

Health care employees need to be perfectly aware that information transmitted via computer, mailed, on telephone calls must be safeguarded and under the express permission of the patient. If a patient does not give permission to use a medium to transmit medical information, the health care worker must honor this request. By not following HIPAA rules and the express consent of the patient, violations punishments, termination, and loss of certification by the health care facility can result.

For more information, please visit our HIPAA training website.

For more information, please visit our HIPAA training website http://www.hipaatrainings.com

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

Category: Advice
Keywords: HIPAA,Health Insurance ,HIPAA training,medical data,HIPAA security rule