HIPAA Compliant Website
Having a solid online presence is crucial for attracting new patients towards your dental practice. In this digital age, nearly 93% of the decisions are made as a result of an online search. This means it is vital to have a website of your practice. But how can you ensure that your website is protecting the privacy and information of your patients? As a healthcare services provider, you need to make your website HIPAA compliant. This is to ensure the safety and confidentiality of the information of your patients.
A HIPAA compliant website develops your credibility and makes your operations much more efficient. On the other hand, a non-compliant website harms your reputation and credibility. And you could end up with a fine from HIPAA.
What is the HIPAA ?
HIPAA is the national regulatory authority. It regulates and sets standards for the security and privacy of protected health information (PHI). This refers to information required to identify patients, such as name, address, contact information and medical records.
HIPAA compliance means that you ensure to take the physical, technical and administrative security measures. Which keep the information of your patients entirely safe and confidential. Your website should be made according to the HIPAA compliance standards and policies. This applies to the transmission and storage of information.
Do You Need to Make Your Dental Practice Website HIPAA Compliant?
To assess whether your dental website is HIPAA compliant or not, you can ask yourself these three basic questions:
Do you:
- Collect PHI through your website?
- Transmit PHI via your website?
- Store PHI on the server of your website?
If the answer to any or all of these questions is ‘yes,’ then you must maintain a HIPAA compliant website for business.
How Can You Make Your Website HIPAA Compliant?
The first thing you need to do is use the HIPAA compliant web information forms to gather information from your patients. This ensures that the information you are collecting from your patients is visible only to you. In other words, this helps in preventing data breaches and unsecured information release.
The next thing is to use encryption on your website and web forms. You need to follow HIPAA encryption standards for the data ‘in motion’ and ‘at rest.’ This is necessary to run a successful practice as it helps protect you, your patients and their information.
In conclusion, you need to implement the HIPAA compliant security measures of PHI use, transmission and storage. It is to ensure smooth, credible and secure operations of your website and business.
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