Why HIPAA Compliance Matters When Hiring a Virtual Assistant
When hiring a virtual assistant to support a healthcare practice, security is not optional; it is essential. Working with a HIPAA-compliant virtual assistant ensures that patient data, medical records, and sensitive business information are protected in accordance with federal law.
Entrusting your business data to a Virtual Assistant Team requires confidence that they are fully HIPAA compliant.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is United States legislation. HIPAA specifically provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information and ensuring confidential handling.
Some of the rights granted by the federal Privacy Rule highlight an individual’s right to:
- Request their own medical records
- Get a report on why their records were shared
- Have corrections made to their medical records
- File complaints if they think their data was misused or violated (HHS.gov).
At Virtual Assist USA, we are proud to offer a HIPAA-compliant virtual assistant team, eliminating compliance concerns for healthcare professionals nationwide.
How Virtual Assist USA Ensures HIPAA Compliance
With extensive experience in healthcare, Virtual Assist USA ensures all services are confidential, secure, and fully compliant.
These actions include:
End-to-End Data Encryption
Encryption is the process of converting data into a code to prevent unwanted or unauthorized access. At Virtual Assist USA, we leverage end-to-end encryption on each database instance.
All data is encrypted with 256-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) with the RC4 algorithm and 2048-bit key length. Our hosting partner maintains a SOC 1 report under SSAE 16 and ISAE 3402 standards.
Business Associate Agreements (BAAs)
When one of our clients needs HIPAA certification, we provide a U.S.-legal-approved Business Associate Agreement (BAA). The agreement comprises our standard confidentiality and non-disclosure contract agreement (NDA) with additional HIPAA-required wording for Business Associate Agreements.
Team-Level Compliance and Monitoring
Another key point is that documents and encryption are excellent, but we take it a step further.
Consequently, we implement a strict process to help ensure compliance at a team level. The process requires any virtual assistant or team member to highlight any potential disclosure of patient information. With the authorized access provided by our clients, we log who accessed information, what was viewed, and when.
Why Healthcare Providers Choose a HIPAA Compliant Virtual Assistant
Virtual Assist USA knows how important it is to adhere to rules and regulations and protect patients.
We respect and value the confidentiality of sensitive information, which is why we implement encryption, provide documentation, and ensure team compliance to ensure that working with medical professionals is always in accordance with federal law.
At this time, we are the only HIPAA-compliant virtual assistant company in existence.
For more information on HIPAA and Health Information Policies, visit HHS.gov.
