HIPAA Overview
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted under President Bill Clinton in 1996. This law ensures the continuity of healthcare coverage for individuals who may change jobs, and includes a provision that affects the management of health information. HIPAA seeks to simplify the administration of health insurance by combating waste, abuse and fraud in health insurance and healthcare. Another primary goal of the act is to protect confidential patient information.
Key Aspects of HIPAA
Requires healthcare organizations to completely rethink the manner in which they protect the security and privacy of healthcare records.
Mandates standard formats for most common transactions between healthcare organizations.
Many healthcare organizations will need to replace or substantially change their current systems and processes regarding healthcare records.
Security – HIPPA Compliant
We take security and confidentiality very seriously. HIPAA Audit – In support of the HIPAA regulations, MT-S.T.A.T. keeps a complete audit history of all transcription activity, from dictation, to transcription to distribution. Access to this information is available only to the system administrator.
MT-S.T.A.T. meets or exceeds all elements of the security standards established by HIPAA. To protect confidential medical information, these security standards guard against unauthorized access to data that is transmitted over a communications network.
- MT-S.T.A.T. values the privacy rights of all patients and strictly adheres to ethical business practices and the HIPAA law to guarantee that we give our clients maximum security for all records.
- Our training team has developed and implemented extensive educational programs for training, all of which highlight HIPAA regulations.
- We assure confidentiality of data and ensure that all employees sign employment contracts with non-disclosure and confidentiality clauses. These agreements stress the confidentiality of all data. Prior to employment, all of our employees go through extensive security and background screening.
- Only authorized personnel are allowed access to our production facility. To further insure the confidentiality of all files, the facility itself has no windows. In addition, employees are not even allowed to bring cell phones, cameras, or their personal bags into the facility.
- All external devices, including floppy and CD-Rom disk drives, and USB ports, are disabled for each and every computer to avoid copying, transmitting or reproducing of files.
- Our data management system grants access to users at various security levels. All users are required to enter individually assigned passwords to gain access to our system and data. We monitor all of our employees’ activities and the log reports are checked on a daily basis.
- To insure MT-S.T.A.T.’s continued HIPAA compliance, we have created a team to monitor developments in the industry relative to HIPAA compliance and security. This team’s task is to recommend additional measures to increase security within the MT-S.T.A.T. facility.
- Our data is stored in a US based server that maintains the VERY highest security measures. For our in-house computer system, we have installed up-to-date firewall systems and the latest antivirus software to protect our system. We also employ a full time IT expert to deal with any problems that may arise with the software or hardware.