HIPAA / Healthcare Industry

The Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has been the gold standard for healthcare regulations and patient rights since the law was passed in 1996 by the U.S. government. HIPAA has been updated and added to several times over the course of the past 22 years with the intention of keeping patients and their personal information secure.

As a medical or health care provider, one of the most important (and often worrisome) aspects to doing business is regulatory compliance to protect the civil rights of patients. Federal, state, and local agencies are constantly formulating and implementing new rules that not only affect the way you run your practice day to day but can result in severe financial consequences if you’re found to be in non-compliance. Here, well focus on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), one of the most important regulatory frameworks you’ll need to focus your compliance efforts on.

Theres arguably no type of information more sensitive than that which relates to personal health care or medical records. Whether its a hospital, clinic or personal physician, entities that provide vital healthcare services are often the targets of hackers, cyber criminals, and other malicious actors that might seek to gain access to private medical information. Which is exactly why the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA for short) was enacted in 1996, with stiff penalties and fines for HIPAA violations. If you are unsure whether your business is violating the HIPAA regulations, you’ll need to seek out cybersecurity consulting firms who are highly specialized in HIPAA compliance solutions to foster covered entities.

Has the Healthcare industry truly learned anything from the 2015 Anthem breach?

Judging by the results of the latest Security Scorecard report, the industry is still unprepared to face existing and known Cybersecurity risks, let alone counter emerging risks presented via expanded mobile and IoT threat vectors. Security Scorecard collected data from 1,200+ Healthcare companies and 1) found how the industry performs relative to other major U.S. industries and 2) uncovered absolute weaknesses within Healthcare organizations.