Healthcare information could be
highly sensitive in nature and people in general expect the healthcare
providers to place great emphasis and importance on safeguarding the healthcare
data of their patients. So, what is the reason behind so many providers
seemingly slacking off?
Healthcare providers hold large
database containing sensitive data on their patients – it includes information
that sometimes even the patients don’t know about themselves. If this sensitive
data falls into wrong hands, it could have adverse effects – it could provide
the criminals with all the necessary data to commit identity theft and/or
fraud. This is the reason why there are some strict rules & regulations
known as PHI or Protected Health Information. The healthcare lawyer Las Vegas
suggest that PHI is meant to give guidelines to healthcare providers on how to
protect this sensitive healthcare data. In the US, a similar set of rules &
regulations is known as HIPAA.
There are two main reasons why
healthcare providers and organizations tend to neglect healthcare compliance:
Lack of resources
The IT department of the
healthcare industry isn’t known to be very well-funded always. At the same
time, the IT personnel as well as administrators in the healthcare industry are
often made to do more with less. The IT departments at the healthcare industry
are often understaffed, underpaid, and under- utilized.
They just don’t know better
Sometimes, it’s all about
ignorance – they simply don’t know or haven’t made themselves aware about the
measures that need to be followed in order to be compliant to the healthcare
law and to avoid Medicaid investigations. And they know about it only when it is too late.
