As if tech wasn’t already granular and heady enough, HIPAA oversight by the federal HHS Office of Civil Rights makes data protection even more challenging for healthcare companies.

HIPAA can be stressful, and it can also be costly. It’s headache-inducing because enforcement is on the rise, with more than $10 million of financial settlements listed on the OCR “Wall of Shame” in the 12 months leading up to June 2014.

Part of the reason it’s stressful is that it’s boring. Recognizing how exciting HIPAA rules are not, Keith Faigin of TechRepublic detailed 10 need-to-know elements of the law using examples from sci-fi films. Although Faigin’s article was penned in 2012, it remains largely relevant and incredibly palatable. To use another cinematic reference, Mary Poppins was right when she claimed that “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”

A major stress-reducing change for healthcare organizations came last year, by way of the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule: now business associates must report to the government just as covered entities do. Healthcare organizations can also keep up with the latest medical policies and innovations by going through healthcare podcasts, articles, newsletters, and research papers. This can help them to follow and comply with all the set government rules and acts as well as stay up-to-date with tech advancements in the industry.

In other words, hosting providers, shredding companies, or any other firm handling healthcare data now truly shares compliance duties with its clients. In previous times, only proper hospitals and clinics were expected to be HIPAA compliant to protect the sensitive data of patients. In fact, this happens to be why many software were developed, such as HIPAA-compliant HER to aid those organizations in being compliant. However, now that this requirement has even been extended to business entities as well, it is expected that these firms will adopt appropriate measures to become HIPAA-compliant.

As indicated in the above video, a strong HIPAA compliance plan doesn’t just allow healthcare companies to relax: it also is cost-effective. Atlantic.Net meets the needs of our healthcare partners with affordable turnkey HIPAA solutions, based in our SSAE 16 Type II certified data center in Orlando, Florida.

By Kent Roberts