HIPPA: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

Enacted to prevent abuses of personal health information (PHI) including unauthorized access. 

Institutions that must comply with HIPPA are referred to as “covered entities”. Covered entities include any and all organizations or individuals who retain or collect health related information. This includes Hospitals, Insurance companies and Clinics as well as Dentists, Chiropractors, Psychiatrists, Counselors, Collection Agencies, Billing Centers.
Actually every employer in the U.S. with health insurance applications or injury reports on file is considered a covered entity under HIPPA.

Protected Health Information (PHI) includes: Diagnosis, Prescriptions, Billing Information, Sign-in Logs, Claim Forms, X-Rays and other images, Insurance Information, Voice recorded transcripts, etc.

Every Covered Entity has the need to collect and discard Protected Health Information. Casually discarding PHI in the trash is no longer reasonable or acceptable. To ensure HIPPA compliance many covered entities now destroy all discarded information. They realize it’s only a matter of time before the Office of Civil Rights, Auditors, and the Media start testing the effectiveness of HIPPA. Public awareness is at an all time high.

Outsourcing document destruction is the most accepted alternative. Call InfoSafe Shredding at 402-891-2688 for more information. 

If you want to find out if you are properly following the federal guidelines for document storage and destruction, give us a call at 402-891-2688 or email us: security@infosafeshredding.com.