What Is HIPAA Training?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, also known as HIPAA, was enacted in order to provide protection and safeguards against the misuse of confidential patient information. The law indicates that it is necessary that certain people receive HIPAA training. For instance, hospitals, physicians, nurses, pharmacies and researchers are all individuals who may receive HIPAA training. HIPAA training includes training on HIPAA policies of an organization, information protection and security awareness.
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Who Must Provide HIPAA Training
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Under HIPAA, if an organization is deemed a "covered entity," the organization must provide HIPAA training to its employees, trainees, agents, volunteers and contractors. A covered entity is one that handles, stores, uses and/or exchanges the private medical information of patients. Thus, HIPAA training involves methods that train a workforce on the reasons for HIPAA, the employer's policies for HIPAA, and any HIPAA procedures. The training can be achieved in a variety of ways: the execution of agreements, educational seminars, on the job training, newsletter updates or other methods.
Use of Privacy, Confidentiality and Information Security Instruments
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One way to incorporate HIPAA training is to use an agreement called a privacy, confidentiality and information security instrument. This document is used usually at the time a person begins employment and throughout the person's duration of employment, such as at the time of an annual review. The document usually will include the policies of the particular employee with respect to HIPAA privacy issues. Furthermore, the document will request that the signatoriess agree to accept responsibility for the privacy procedures and policies, utilize the policies and accept the imposition of sanctions in the event of a HIPAA violation through a violation of the employer's policies.
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Educational Courses
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An employer may offer educational courses on HIPAA. These educational courses usually focus on how the employer handles protected health information and, thus, how the employee will be exposed to this information. Furthermore, the course will discuss policies and procedures for handling protected information in order to achieve the protections the HIPAA law requires. For instance, the employer may have a certain prescribed way in which it handles patient data which has been inadvertently exchanged to an outside entity. In addition, the course may discuss the employer's HIPAA privacy officer, if the employer has such an officer, and advise the employees as to the situations in which the officer must be involved. In addition, the employer may teach the employee the potential consequences of a HIPAA violation and how, if at all, the violation impacts the employee's job.
Newsletters and Other Internal Information
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Another way an employer can achieve HIPAA training is to use internal documents, such as company newsletters. HIPAA requires that HIPAA training is ongoing; thus, an internal newsletter containing any HIPAA developments or relevant cases can be circulated to employees in order to ensure that the employees' information remains current and in accordance with the legal constraints proscribed by HIPAA.
Computer Training
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Another HIPAA training vehicle is computer training. When a covered entity stores and/or exchanges protected medical data via its computer system, HIPAA mandates that certain requirements are fulfilled. For instance, the computers must be password protected, have limited access to only those users who rely upon the system for his or her job, have additional back up security measures and more. Thus, HIPAA training may include computer training for employees who use the computer for their jobs. Employers may create computerized exercises for these employees in order to recreate a potential HIPAA violation and allow the employee to resolve the matter. This hands-on training serves to fulfill the training mandates of HIPAA.
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