HIPAA Risk Management plans

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At Colington Consulting, we work to ensure our clients are fully compliant with all HIPAA regulatory requirements. We offer a wide variety of services that enable us to help organizations implement security measures sufficient to reduce risks and vulnerabilities to a reasonable and appropriate level. This includes any necessary mitigation actions.

Our knowledgeable staff has over 60 years of experience in regulatory compliance, risk mitigation, and health privacy requirements. We were also named one of the top 10 HIPAA Consulting companies by Atlantic.net. Reach out to us to see how we can assist you with the implementation of a HIPAA risk management process today.

Colington Consulting is dedicated to ensuring that your organization has a comprehensive risk management plan in place to keep your practice or company in compliance with all HIPAA laws and regulations. We will work directly with your staff to understand your business operations, customize needed policies and procedures, and implement a facility security plan. 

We begin with an evaluation of current your current security management process.  Once completed, we develop and customize comprehensive policies and procedures that addresses all requirements under the HIPAA Security Rule.

The HIPAA Security Rule established national standards for safeguarding electronic protected health information. The Security Rule requires that all such data is protected with administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. 

Staff at Colington Consulting are experts in understanding and implementing HIPAA requirements, and we will make sure you have the appropriate guidance to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule.

Ask our clients!! Upon request, we can provide client references who can speak about our services, professionalism, knowledge of compliance regulations, and the experience of working with our company.

Our HIPAA Risk Management Plans are designed to meet the requirements of all the HIPAA Security Standards and Implementation Specifications. Specific areas we address include:

The administrative requirements designated by HIPAA are intended to ensure that staff knows how to properly protect electronic patient data. Our plan will provide your team with specific policies to follow to comply with administrative standards. It will include procedures on:

● Staff training requirements 

● Workforce security measures and supervision

● Procedures to respond to security incidents 

● Sanctions for employees who don’t follow the HIPAA procedures

● Specific procedures for backing up data 

● Protocols for security awareness reminders

Our staff will undertake a review of your organization to ensure that administrative policies and procedures fit your business needs and meet all administrative safeguards. 

The protection of electronic patient health information requires strong technical safeguards to be put in place. 

Colington Consulting will work to ensure that appropriate technical protections are identified and included in your company’s HIPAA risk management plan. Specific concerns, such as those listed below, will be addressed with  policies and procedures: 

● Access control measures

● Safeguards to determine authorized access to ePHI by workforce members and vendors

● Emergency access control measures

● Implement procedures to describe a mechanism to encrypt and decrypt ePHI

● Audit control measures for information systems that contain or use ePHI

● Safeguards focusing on transmission security

● Integrity controls to ensure transmitted ePHI is not improperly modified without detection

Establishing appropriate technical safeguards is one of the most important things you can do to maintain the security of electronic patient health data. At Colington Consulting, we’ll make sure you have the proper procedures in place.

Designing a HIPAA Risk Management Plan with appropriate physical safeguards is necessary to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule. 

Our knowledgeable personnel at Colington Consulting can ensure that you have documented policies and procedures designed to protect the physical aspect of electronic protected health information. Policies and procedures will address the following:

● Design of facility security controls to prevent potential theft of data

● Creation of a facility security plan to prevent unwanted access to office locations

● Establishing access control and validation procedures

● Procedures for workstation use and security

● Systems for disposal or reuse of devices and media

● Device accountability policies

● Rules for data backup and storage

Understanding and applying physical safeguards in your healthcare organization will assist in the security protection of electronic patient health data. Our experts can set up a system of procedures designed to comply with the HIPAA Security Rule.

As social media is a prominent part of most of our lives, it makes sense to establish a social media policy that protects the electronic health data of your patients. Staff members who are aware and trained on the aspects of the policy are much less likely to accidentally share protected information through social media. 

The knowledgeable staff at Colington Consulting can ensure that you have documented social media procedures in place that prevent staff from inadvertently sharing or posting information on patients or the healthcare organization itself.

Facility security should be at the top of your list of security concerns. While hospitals and larger healthcare organizations typically require significant facility security to comply with HIPAA, smaller institutions are not exempt. Any healthcare organization or business associate must implement policies and procedures to safeguard the facility and their equipment from unauthorized physical access, tampering, and theft. The staff at Colington address areas like alarm systems, the use of an internal/external camara systems, ensuring doors locks or proximity card systems are appropriate, and overall physical security measures. 

This security can include setting up access control measures for patients, staff, visitors, and contractors. The plan can put access protocols in place where patient records are stored to prevent any impermissible disclosures of protected health information from occurring. 

Our competent staff at Colington Consulting understands the need for strategically designed facility security plans, and we can help you put one in place.

Another requirement established by HIPAA is the need for a contingency plan. If data is lost due to a fire, system failure, network outage, severe storms, or other emergencies that results in the loss of access to the office or the data, you need to have a plan in place. 

Patient data must remain accessible and available with a data backup or disaster recovery plan. If your organization provides critical healthcare services and data must be available on a 24/7 basis, an Emergency Mode Operation Plan must be in place. 

Personnel at Colington Consulting specialize in setting up HIPAA specific contingency plans to address unfortunate situations that may arise. Our HIPAA Risk Management solution is designed to help your healthcare organization or business meet all its regulatory requirements.

Our HIPAA Risk Management Plans also come with HIPAA guidance documents. These documents include position descriptions for your HIPAA Privacy and Security officials, required reports and forms, and other guidance regarding the HIPAA Security Rule, as well as additional reference material for ensuring compliance.

The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule requires that covered entities and their business associates notify individuals, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and potentially the media if a breach of electronic protected health information occurs regardless of how many individuals are affected. 

Colington Consulting provides step by step reporting requirements for the breach notification process in the HIPAA Risk Management Plan. If your organization is subject to a breach investigation by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), these policies and procedures may be requested to determine if compliance requirements were met. 

Colington Consulting can provide any healthcare organization or business with the appropriate HIPAA Risk Management tools that they need. We provide specific plans for covered entities, business associates, and HIPAA Hybrid Entities. Each of these entities is defined below.

As defined by HIPAA, covered entities include healthcare providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses. This includes entities that conduct transactions and electronically transmit information between two or more parties to carry out financial or administrative activities related to health care.

Business associates of covered entities must comply with HIPAA rules and regulations if they receive or store electronic protected health information. Common types of business associates can include IT companies, data analytics services, claims processors, pharmacy benefits managers, and attorneys or CPAs who must have access to the protected health information to perform their duties.

Hybrid entities, which is a single legal entity, that perform both covered and non-covered functions (Business Associate functions) as defined by HIPAA must also comply with HIPAA regulations. Examples of HIPAA Hybrid Entities include research centers, universities, and municipalities.

At Colington Consulting, HIPAA risk management is a priority in the security management process for your organization. If you’re struggling with ensuring your organization is compliant with HIPAA, reach out to our experts! We have over 60 years of combined experience in guiding healthcare organizations and businesses in making sure they have the appropriate policies and procedures in place.