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Posts Tagged ‘hipaa’

Are Replies to Encrypted Emails also Secure?

Tuesday, December 26th, 2023

Sending HIPAA-compliant emails is easy when you use an encryption solution like LuxSci. But what happens when someone replies to an encrypted message? Are the replies also secure? This is primarily a concern when using SMTP TLS as a secure means of email delivery. 

This article will explain how messages are sent securely, how replies behave, and whether they are secure and compliant. At the end, we provide some recommendations for how to balance security and usability. 

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Is TLS Email Encryption Suitable for Compliance?

Tuesday, September 19th, 2023

This article discusses what types of email encryption are sufficient to comply with government regulations. TLS email encryption is a good option for many organizations that manage sensitive data. However, it does not protect data at rest. Each organization must perform a risk assessment to determine which encryption methods suit their legal requirements.

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HIPAA-Compliant Secure Email: Understanding Encryption

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

Email encryption is an important topic to understand when evaluating HIPAA compliant email vendors. Encryption is an addressable standard for HIPAA compliance, but if you send sensitive information via email, encryption is the easiest way to meet the standard.

The two most common email encryption methods include SMTP TLS and Secure Portal Pick Up. This article will discuss their differences and guide users on selecting the right option for HIPAA-compliant secure email.

secure email sending

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Is Medical Billing Information Protected Under HIPAA?

Tuesday, August 9th, 2022

Electronic medical billing requires access to protected health information to accurately bill and receive payment for medical treatments. While not covered entities, medical billing companies are often contracted as business associates and fall under HIPAA regulations.

Title II of HIPAA applies directly to medical billing companies. It dictates the proper uses and disclosures of protected health information (PHI) and simplifies claims and billing processing.

electronic medical billing

What is Protected Health Information (PHI)?

Protected health information is “individually identifiable” health information. It specifically refers to three classes of data:

  1. An individual’s past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition.
  2. The past, present, or future provisioning of health care to an individual.
  3. The past, present, or future payment-related information for the provisioning of health care to an individual.

As listed in item three, payment-related information tied to healthcare provisioning is protected data under HIPAA. This can include information about insurance carriers and payments, billing statements, receipts, credit card numbers, bank accounts, and other financial information.

To be classified as PHI, payment-related information must be tied to an individual identifier. For example, a medical bill with a patient’s address can be tied back to a specific individual. These identifiers can sometimes be quite indirect. There are 18 types of identifiers for an individual (listed below). Any of one of these, combined with information on healthcare payments, would constitute PHI:

  • Name
  • Address (all geographic subdivisions smaller than a state, including street address, city, county, zip code)
  • All elements (except years) of dates related to an individual (including birth date, admission date, discharge date, date of death, and exact age if over 89)
  • Telephone number
  • Fax number
  • Email address
  • Social Security number
  • Medical record number
  • Health plan beneficiary number
  • Account number
  • Certificate/license number
  • Any vehicle or other device serial number
  • Device identifiers or serial numbers
  • Web URL
  • Internet Protocol (IP) address numbers
  • Finger or voiceprints
  • Photographic images
  • Any other characteristic that could uniquely identify the individual

The Risks to Medical Billing Companies

It should be evident that medical billing companies work with a lot of PHI. As such, they must take steps to protect that information under HIPAA regulations.

Third-Party Risk

Many healthcare systems contract medical billing companies to process claims and bill patients and insurance companies. These companies can present significant risks to protected health information if not adequately vetted. All third-party companies that handle PHI on behalf of a covered entity must sign a business associate agreement. This document discusses how sensitive medical billing information will be stored, secured, and transmitted. It is also essential to ensure that the billing companies understand their obligations under the privacy and security rules and have implemented the proper physical, technical, administrative, and organizational standards. This can be verified via security audits and assessments.

Third parties like medical billing companies are often targets for cyberattacks. From 2020 to 2021, cyberattacks on business associates increased by 18%. The rich trove of financial and health data they have is often more comprehensive and less secure than a hospital’s electronic health records system. Unlike covered entities who frequently work under HIPAA regulations, third parties may not wholly understand it. As a result, they may fail to take the technical steps needed to secure sensitive data.

How to protect electronic medical billing information

Like many healthcare organizations, financial institutions are also undergoing digital transformation and are moving to digitize healthcare payment processes. Digitization is an effective way to reduce payment times and improve patient satisfaction. However, it also introduces risk. Digital systems that contain healthcare billing information must implement the proper safeguards, including:

  • Organizational requirements that describe how policies and procedures will be implemented and obligations concerning business associate contracts.
  • Administrative requirements related to how employees access PHI.
  • Physical safeguards that encompass the security of computer systems, servers, and networks, access to the facility and workstations, data backups and storage, and the destruction of obsolete data.
  • Technical safeguards that ensure the security of data transmitted over an open electronic network and the storage of that data.

Protecting Electronic Medical Billing Information In Databases

Digital billing information that is stored in electronic databases or online web portals must be secured in the following ways:

  • Using a secure and HIPAA-compliant web and database host.
  • Limiting access to only authorized users.
  • Requiring unique logins and complex passwords with multifactor authentication to access ePHI.
  • Encrypting the contents of the database so they cannot be accessed if there is a breach.
  • Making regular backups of the database and storing them independently of the main system.

Sending Healthcare Billing Notifications Digitally

Many people now prefer to receive electronic medical billing notifications via email. A survey of 3,000 US consumers found that 85% are already using e-billing, and 47.6% find it is faster to pay bills electronically. However, using email, text messaging, or other digital communication forms introduces new risks and requires remediation to protect ePHI in transmission. These safeguards include:

  • Encrypting messages in transit
  • Authenticating user identities and sending domains
  • Requiring unique user logins and complex passwords
  • Protecting against threats with anti-virus software, email filtering, and other malicious scanning tools.
  • Creating audit logs and reviewing them for suspicious activities.

Services like LuxSci’s Secure High Volume Email can integrate with existing systems to send automated encrypted billing notifications via API or SMTP.

Is Email Archival Required For HIPAA Compliant Email?

Tuesday, April 5th, 2022

Customers often inquire if email archival is required by HIPAA regulations in order to have HIPAA compliant email.

There is a great deal of confusion and uncertainty here because:

  1. HIPAA lists many requirements but does not provide specific instructions on implementing them. It’s ambiguous but provides a great deal of flexibility for organizations.
  2. Email archival adds a fixed cost to any email solution – and everyone prefers to avoid unnecessary costs.
  3. Due to time and budgetary constraints, many organizations want to do the minimum needed for compliance.

email archival hipaa

In our opinion, email archival is an implicit requirement of HIPAA for all organizations that send ePHI via email. In the next section, we’ll review why.

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