Patient Data Security: A necessity for Medical Transcription Companies

The medical transcription companies have to deal with enormous healthcare data throughout the year. Therefore it is the utmost duty for all medical transcription companies to handle each patient data sensitively and maintain complete patient privacy. It is imperative that medical transcription companies should keep themselves updated with the basic legal rules and regulations. Failing to adhere to the legal requirements will result in hefty penalties for the medical transcription companies.

Routine Steps for safeguarding patient’s medical data

Many of the existing medical transcription companies lack proper privacy and confidentiality structure in their organization. This leads to data breach and the company ends up paying hefty legal compensations. In order to prevent such instincts, this blog will show you how to maintain patient confidentiality privacy and security. Read to know more!!

● Avoid talking about reports that are been transcribed

● Avoid retaining patient’s data after the work is done

● Turn aside sensitive data when medical transcriptionist is not working around

● Protect the machine with antivirus software and firewall, this safeguards the data from hackers

● Lock the files where the patient’s data is located

● Making sure the workstation is completely secured with passwords

● Strictly avoid sending voice or transcribed files on instant messenger as these could be intercepted

Understanding Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 1996

The privacy, security, and confidentiality in the healthcare environment were recognized by the HIPAA in 1996. This act was established as a measure to protect individual medical data from getting breached. With the rising number of medical transcription companies, the need for this act became inevitable. The rule states that the medical transcription companies have to provide a balanced use of patient information while protecting the privacy of the person who is seeking care. The medical transcription companies need to understand the importance of confidentiality in healthcare as the medical record is a legal document. The information that is shared in each document is based on patient privacy and confidentiality policy. Each medical record must be kept confidential in order to prevent any mishap.

According to HIPAA’s privacy policy, the business associate contacts must contain several specific provisions. The contact even requires the business associate to prevent disclosing any information regarding the patient’s health background and current status. The provider must be given specific information about the company’s privacy policies and the necessary preventive steps for curbing out data breach.

If you are new to the Medical Transcription industry, you must start framing the privacy, patient privacy and confidentiality policy. It is the base construction for any medical transcription companies. If you want to build strong patient privacy you are required to establish certain norms and regulations for the medical transcriptionists as well. The management needs to keep an eye on all the employees and their working structures. Try to build a common interface from where the authority will have full access to the machines. You can identify any suspicious activity whether an employee is trying to breach data or not. Therefore, it is important for all medical transcription companies to set a privacy policy for maintaining patient data security.