The US government recently reported that millions of health records are breached every year. For behavioral health organizations, each breach translates into massive fines for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws.

HIPAA fines, which range from $100 to $50,000 per record, can easily bankrupt an organization.

Protecting your behavioral health organization from HIPAA violations is a top priority for software developers at BehaveHealth. Still, there are a lot of misconceptions about digital PHI (or ePHI) security.

Let’s look at the 5 key ways smart software, like BehaveHealth’s all-in-one cloud-based treatment center management solution, protect your organization from HIPAA violations and keep your organization in full compliance with patient privacy laws at all times.

HIPAA Violation Protection #1: All PHI is Encrypted

Encryption adds an extra layer of security to your data. Storing ePHI in an unencrypted format is a big HIPAA no-no.  

Consider what happens if you store unencrypted patient data on a thumb drive, as one specialty clinic did.

Now let’s say that thumb drive is stolen from your car.

You’re out of luck—the thieves now have total access to that ePHI because your data is unencrypted.

If that same data was encrypted, the thieves would need to steal your thumb drive and crack the code used to encrypt your data. Quite a tall order!

At BehaveHealth, your ePHI gets the same level of encryption security used by the Federal government. We’ve implemented the same protocol used by agencies like the IRS—the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Federal Information Processing Standard—for all data in our system.

That’s some serious encryption.

HIPAA Violation Protection #2: We’re Constantly on Guard Against Data Breaches

There were 33 reported healthcare data breaches in January 2019 alone.

Most of these were categorized by the government as “hacking/IT incidents” but they are more accurately labeled phishing attacks. We often think of hackers as computer geniuses, but most of the time these “geniuses” are simply tricking employees into revealing their passwords via email.

Other leading causes of data breaches are improper disposal of data, theft, and unauthorized disclosure.

Regardless of the source of the breach, BehaveHealth’s smart software is designed to automatically catch nefarious behaviors. We’re constantly scanning for anomalous activities and system issues. Any intrusion attempts are automatically identified and blocked.

What’s more, our virtual file systems are constantly scanned for integrity, malware, and rootkits, keeping your system healthy and virus-free.

Finally, we know that the work of building the world’s most secure behavioral health management system is never done. That’s why we monitor newly published vulnerabilities and exposures and respond rapidly to changes with custom preventative measures and security patches.

HIPAA Violation Protection #3: Your Patients Own Their Data

At BehaveHealth, we believe patients have a right to easily access their PHI. That’s why we automatically store all records for eight years.

We also believe it should be quick and easy for behavioral health organizations to get permission from patients to collect and use patient data. To make sure the process goes smoothly, we’ve built the appropriate forms for patient consent for the use of PHI into our intake workflow.

Lastly, our intake workflow also ensures that patients complete the proper consent forms releasing BehaveHealth to store PHI and use patient data in order to complete the insurance billing process.    

Your patients remain in control and your organization remains in compliance—automatically.

HIPAA Violation Protection #4: You Control the Level of Staff Access

Your newly hired drug and alcohol counselor doesn’t need the same level of access to PHI as your veteran clinical supervisor.

Because improper disclosure of PHI is still a leading cause of HIPAA violations, we’ve made it easy for admins to assign user roles to each BehaveHealth system user. Each user accesses the system through a unique user account governed by custom permissions.

You decide who can access what, and when.

Want to Know More About How BehaveHealth Keeps Your ePHI Secure and Your Organization HIPAA Compliant?

You can read more about the technical details of BehaveHealth’s state of the art information security features here. If you have any questions, you can always feel free to reach out to us.

Consider getting your free trial today so you can experience our security features first-hand.