The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was introduced as a federal law to protect and safeguard patients’ private and confidential data from being shared, disclosed, or accessed without their approval or knowledge. It’s a regulatory standard comprising many sections, rules, and details regarding patient health information (PHI) management, protection, and security.

There are two main aspects of HIPAA, namely the Privacy Rule and the Security Rule, and here is how they affect dental practices, which are covered entities:

The need for software security

Your dental practice needs IT solutions that implement stricter security for sensitive PHI, including encryption, access restriction, and verification, among other steps, to ensure that you are complying with HIPAA’s Security Rule. All data in your system needs to be stored on safe platforms that are protected by a reliable cybersecurity system with a trusted Business Associate, such as Foris IT Management.

Staff at a dental clinic discusses information at the reception.

Improving HIPAA compliance for business

There are several benefits and advantages to improving HIPAA compliance for dental practices, including better PHI management, faster processing times, and more efficient service delivery. Your data will also be safe and backed up on a cloud platform as part of disaster protection requirements, avoiding physical access to patient files and other advantages. Overall, it’s an important measure in keeping your patients and your dental practice safe from regulatory misdemeanors, privacy violations, and other associated issues.

How to get started

HIPAA compliance is important for dental practices to continue working in the US, and you can improve your standards through our IT support for dentists. Schedule a free consultation to know more about our IT services for dental practices, and we’ll begin work on an audit to evaluate your compliance.