Why Your Practice Should Know About HIPAA Compliance

When it comes to HIPAA compliance and your new dental practice, you don't really have a choice. Legally, you're obligated to follow HIPAA guidelines with your patients' identifying health information. This is important not only for legal reasons but because you could also be the victim of a data breach that puts you and your patients at risk.

Know enough to know what you don't know

If you are found to be violating HIPAA, saying you didn't know won't get you off the hook. You need to know enough about HIPAA and keeping your practice compliant that you can at least entrust someone else to keep you up-to-date. But like anything else, office management, taxes, human resources, and other things, you need to know enough to keep yourself out of trouble. But how will you know if you're on the right track if you know nothing? 

You may not know all the details of HIPAA compliance and your practice, but you need to make sure you know the broad strokes so you can stay safe.

Find someone you trust to know everything

This is where delegating will make your life easier. Appoint someone in your office as the HIPAA guru. It will be this person's job to know everything there is to know about keeping your practice compliant. Send them to training, make sure they keep their knowledge up-to-date. They'll be the point person in your office that keeps everyone else in line.

Create and document processes

It's not as simple as putting all the responsibility on one person in your office. Not only is it a possibility that your point person could move to a different job, they also may end up sick or otherwise unavailable. What if they haven't documented or trained anyone? What if you're left to your own devices to stay HIPAA compliant? That sounds terrifying! 

Keeping your office compliant also means creating good processes that keep everyone on the same page. And like any other office process, it needs to be documented so it can be replicated—whether that's by someone in your office or by a new employee.

At tab32, HIPAA compliance is built into our dental software. We want you to be able to keep your office on the up-and-up easily and without a lot of extra work. Learn more about our security features and how they protect you and your patients—sign up today for a free demo