Is Your Medical Answering Service Hipaa Compliant?

This really should be a key element while selecting a service. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a law that seeks to protect patient privacy and access to medical records, and if your answering service isn’t compliant, your patients’ information could be in danger of being made public. If this happens, you could be in a lot of trouble for not making certain your patients were protected. In fact, lawsuits are not uncommon when this occurs. And that’s something you don’t want any part of.

Protecting your practice, and your patients’ privacy from cyber hacking isn’t as easy as it used to be.

Every day you read articles about cyber hacking. Banks, credit card companies, the government, stores, and yes, even the medical profession, is not immune to these attacks. If your medical answering service is HIPAA Compliant, you can breathe a sigh of relief. But if it’s not, you’re simply looking for trouble – big trouble! Because once that information goes public, it’s like the genie that can’t be put back into the bottle. And guess who your patients are going to blame? Not your service, you! Not only could that be devastating for your reputation and your practice, but it could put you right out of business.

What a good HIPAA Compliant answering service does

It’s not enough just to hire an HIPAA Compliant answering service; you have to hire one that’s 100% compliant, 24/7/365. Such a service (The Doctors Answer, www.thedrsanswer.com is one of the best) is vigilant every second of every day. That means they keep track of all the malware that’s out there, along with their mutations, to defend against hacking your patients’ information. It’s a huge job, and calls for highly trained professionals, as well as the latest technology, to keep ahead of the hackers. Not every HIPAA Compliant medical answering service has the personnel to do this, the Doctors Answer does. In fact, they specialize in the medical profession, and their record has been outstanding.

Don’t gamble with your practice!

You need an answering service that knows what it’s doing, and understands the medical profession. The people who call your office are not ordering pizza, or getting appointments to have their cars serviced. They have serious concerns about their health. And along with being treated in a professional manner, they expect their information to be strictly confidential. Think about it! Then check www.thedrsanswer.com.