Ensure HIPAA Compliance with Healthcare Management Software

HIPAA Compliance and Healthcare Finance

How does a healthcare finance unit ensure perfect HIPAA compliance? Not easily. And not without reliable healthcare management software.

HIPAA compliance has only gotten harder over the years for a number of reasons. First is the explosion of digital healthcare information subject to HIPAA protection. Second is the increasing use of (insecure) technology to share and manage that information. Finally, regulators have gotten strict about enforcing HIPAA mandates as cybersecurity has become a bigger issue in the 25 years since the law went into effect.

As recently as 2018, HHS set new records for HIPAA enforcement activity. The agency collected over $28 million in fines, representing a 22% increase over the previous record. It also levied the largest single fine in history, $16 million. Numbers like these illustrate that anything less than perfect compliance can lead to swift and severe financial penalties. Trying to avoid those penalties can also become an ongoing distraction for medical practice accountants that have other priorities to deal with.

Instead of expecting better results from the same methods, healthcare finance teams need to consider an entirely new approach to HIPAA compliance – and they need to start soon.

An Organic Approach to HIPAA Compliance

HIPAA compliance may be a pressing issue, but so are most aspects of healthcare finance. One reason compliance has been a struggle, historically, is because most accounting software treat it like an issue separate from their core efforts, with the predictable result that it gets neglected. A better approach treats compliance like an organic part of healthcare finance more broadly.

That means everything a healthcare finance unit does with data automatically meets HIPAA mandates. Instead of being something accountants have to manage, verify, or fix, compliance happens automatically. It becomes a box to confidently check.

When compliance does require attention in the form of an audit, having HIPAA rules integrated into every financial workflow streamlines the entire process. Instead of investing time to find and piece together the necessary data, it already exists in audit-ready form.

These may sound like hypothetical scenarios, but they describe the reality for a number of healthcare finance teams, even some that are working remotely. What do all these teams have in common? Sage Intacct.

Self-Driving HIPAA Compliance

Sage Intacct ranks as one of the top financial management solutions on the market, in part because of its healthcare-specific functionality. That includes certification for HIPAA- and HITECH-compliance. Everything that happens inside of Sage Intacct (which facilitates everything that happens inside healthcare management finance) meets the strict mandates defined by regulators.

With compliance largely driving itself and with the audits to prove that everything is working as required, healthcare finance units can turn their attention elsewhere. Sage Intacct gives them the tools to streamline compliance and then make the most of that saved time to develop strategy, perfect processes, adapt to the unexpected, or lay long-term plans.

Is HIPAA compliance an obstacle at your office? Contact Equation Technologies.