Healthcare communications from providers, insurers, or other organizations have unique requirements. When they contain PHI (protected health information), the rules of HIPAA apply. For those who outsource these tasks, you must evaluate options for HIPAA-compliant mailing services.
How should this assessment occur? Best practices from stakeholders and laws provide guideposts. This step-by-step guide will help you with your evaluations.
The Guide to Ensuring HIPAA-Compliant Mailing Services
These steps can guide your search for the best transactional communications partner.
1. Are They Compliant?
It may seem obvious, but the first step is to check their compliance with HIPAA and HITRUST. They should hold up-to-date certifications in both. Request to view these documents to confirm.
2. Can They Monitor and Secure the Lifecycle of the Communication?
A potential breach could occur through the production process, starting with the transmission of data. Secure file processing must be the starting point, ideally via an SFTP (Secure File Transmission Protocol). Once received, the data should be encrypted, whether in transit or at rest.
As the letter flows through the production process, there must be monitoring of its every move through its delivery via the mail system. Protocols must be in place to safeguard the communications and ensure only the intended receiver finds it in their mailbox. A significant part of this is the point of insertion.
HIPAA-compliant mail services that excel at this accuracy use intelligent insertion technology. It consists of 2D barcodes on each piece of paper, which detail the addressee and grouping. Cameras scan those, and inserters use this information to fold the correct pages into the envelope. An integrity camera takes a photo of this for validation. Image decoding also identifies the letter’s unique sequence number, matched back to the daily file.
3. What Data Security Practices Do They Have?
At a minimum, the provider must follow all requirements under HIPAA for data security. If they go beyond this, you’ll have greater peace of mind. HIPAA rules include administrative, physical, and technical safeguards. Establishing these ensures the integrity, security, and confidentiality of patient data.
Many organizations exceed these standards with proactive cybersecurity measures like regular penetration testing and vulnerability scanning. They may also expand the basics of encryption with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). Other best practices would be network segmentation, advanced firewalls, and IPS (Intrusion Protection System).
4. Do They Have an Audit Trail for Reporting or Investigating Non-Compliance?
Should your organization need to report or investigate non-compliance associated with transactional mailings, you must have an audit trail. You should be able to trace every letter sent to identify any vulnerabilities.
Be sure to ask lots of questions about how a provider does this and how real-time the information is. Many may offer a secure portal with daily confirmations of the jobs received and the ability to track them.
5. What Physical Security Protocols Are in Place?
Because these communications are physical versus digital, there’s a risk of breach in the print and mailing production. Strict rules should be in place to prevent unauthorized access. Many in the industry don’t focus solely on transactional, which could be cause for concern. This means that only certain areas of the facility are achieving HIPAA-compliant mailing services.
Physical security measures should include 24-7 camera monitoring, door alarms, controlled access, and secure perimeters.
6. Who’s Responsible for Security and HIPAA Compliance?
This is a crucial step to understanding roles and responsibilities. Data security and HIPAA compliance must have expert oversight. Unfortunately, many print and mail companies don’t invest in this, which intensifies risk.
A dedicated transactional vendor has full-time staff concentrating solely on data security and HIPAA compliance. They usually have a Compliance Officer and team proactively monitoring for any new rules or threats and acting immediately to address them.
PCI Group HIPAA-Compliant Mailing Services
We’re experts in delivering fully compliant HIPAA communications. All our work falls under mailings with regulatory requirements. It’s part of the entire workflow, from data receipt to letter delivery. Learn more about how we uphold security, compliance, and accuracy for the healthcare industry.
