HIPAA business associates can make or break your HIPAA compliance effort
HIPAA business associate agreements have become one of the most critical contracts a healthcare provider has in place. That’s because massive volumes of private patient data flows to and from these entities 24×7, putting the providers who hire them at massive cybersecurity risk. HIPAA violations commonly originate with third-party providers.
Getting down on paper everything the provider expects of the business associate not only provides peace of mind, it also sets a tone of prioritization for data security and privacy. The positive, trickle-down impact such a tone has – on workplace culture, patient trust and regulator approval – can’t be overstated.
That said, business associate agreements can be complex, governing everything from permitted uses of protected health information to the appropriate safeguards an associate is expected to implement. Fortunately, there are resources for putting these contracts together, chief among them, the 2019 business associate agreement template.
Resources like the template are especially helpful for busy clinic owners balancing compliance to-do’s with patient care. Using a customizable HIPAA business associate agreement form will make it much easier for harried caregivers to develop a business associate agreement for 2019.
Templates like these are just one of the many tools available to SIMBUS360 users. If you’d like to learn more about the availability of this and similar HIPAA compliance resources, please schedule a demo.