Healthcare Compliance Insights

Compliance Blog — Page 4

Guidance on HIPAA administrative safeguards, technical controls, policy development, and compliance program management for covered entities and business associates.

HIPAA Compliance Articles: Page 4

Practical resources on HIPAA administrative safeguards, technical controls, and policy development to help your organization build and maintain a defensible compliance program. These articles address real-world implementation challenges that small and mid-sized healthcare practices face during audits and risk assessments.

Key HIPAA terms used in these articles

Plain-language definitions of the terms that appear throughout the blog, each tied to the regulation it comes from.

Protected Health Information (PHI)
Individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity or business associate, in any form or medium (45 CFR 160.103).
Electronic PHI (ePHI)
PHI that is created, received, maintained, or transmitted in electronic form (45 CFR 160.103).
Covered Entity
A health plan, health care clearinghouse, or health care provider that transmits health information electronically (45 CFR 160.103).
Business Associate
A person or company that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI on behalf of a covered entity, such as billing, IT, or cloud vendors (45 CFR 160.103).
Business Associate Agreement (BAA)
The written contract HIPAA requires between a covered entity and a business associate (45 CFR 164.502(e), 164.504(e)).
Security Rule
The standards for protecting ePHI through administrative, physical, and technical safeguards (45 CFR Part 164, Subpart C).
Security Risk Assessment (SRA)
The accurate and thorough risk analysis the Security Rule requires you to conduct and document (45 CFR 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A)).
Breach Notification Rule
After a breach of unsecured PHI, individuals must be notified without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 calendar days after discovery, and HHS must be notified (45 CFR 164.400 to 164.414).