Ransomware attacks against health-care organizations increased by 89% between 2016 and 2017 according to recent report. Practices are unprepared for attacks and are wide open to potential data breaches. Unfortunately, such a data breach has major consequences for a healthcare organization. Audits, breach notification costs and potential fines all stack up.
To make matters worse, healthcare organizations trying to do the right thing by bringing on a managed IT company to manage their technology could still be risk for HIPAA violations, data breaches that lead to PHI exposure and other IT nightmares. The simple fact is that if your IT provider is not very well versed in HIPAA and doesn’t have expertise in healthcare IT needs, they are creating more problems than they’re solving.
What to Look for in a Managed IT Services Provider – A Primer for Healthcare practices
If you have a Managed IT Services provider, here are 3 questions you can ask to get a picture of their understanding of HIPAA:
- Did they sign a Business Associate Agreement with you?
- What specific ways do they help with HIPAA compliance?
- What role did the IT provider play during your practices’ last annual HIPAA risk assessment?
How Healthcare-Focused IT Solutions Help Your Practice
Clearly, not just any MSP can manage a healthcare practices’ IT. Healthcare IT is very specific, thanks to HIPAA. here are some ways Macatawa Technologies can help your practice:
- Conduct annual HIPAA risk assessments. When was your last annual risk assessment? We conduct assessments, share the results and offer recommended actions to improve your compliance.
- Lower your risk of HIPAA audits and fines. Breaches bring the auditors and high costs. Macatawa Technologies works with you to address common HIPAA oversights, including:
- Acceptable use policies
- Password policies
- Shared user accounts
- Insufficient or nonexistent tracking of breaches
- Unsecured wireless networks
- Physical security (i.e. laptops laying around)
- Decrease stress. Healthcare practices have enough to do without trying to manage the IT aspects of HIPAA compliance. We take the stress of evaluating and implementing innovative technologies in your practice off your back.
- Get more patients. Our technical expertise and focus on the medical field relieves you of trial-and-error efforts to set-up new technology and solutions. We meet quarterly to share recommendations that can help you decrease billing cycles, get more patients and lower overhead.
- Train your employees. We can conduct critical employee training on cybersecurity awareness and best practices that will help protect PHI and other sensitive data.
- Protect your mobile devices. Mobile devices are increasingly necessary in a healthcare environment, but present particular challenges to data security. We can help ensure your mobile workforce maintains compliance, confidentiality and security whether the device is company-provided or BYOD.
- Prevent and remediate ongoing issues. Too much downtime is not good for the practice. Our focus is on preventing problems through ongoing monitoring, maintenance. When issues arise, we look for and address root causes and resolve issues quickly. Hassle-free IT is our motto.
- Offer strategic guidance. From helping you grow your practice to increase the number of patients you can see, we help you chart a course for achieving your vison through the strategic use of technology.
What Will It Cost Me?
This question is answered based on your practice’s needs and budget in consultation with your IT provider. Low cost solutions are not always the best solutions. But there’s no reason your practice should pay exorbitant amounts of money to protect itself. We’ll work within your budget to secure your practice.
How much will not having these protections cost?
The answer here is based on how much time your practice can survive without access to its data, how much harm your reputation can withstand, how many patients you are willing to lose to other practices, how many thousands of dollars in notifying affected patients your practice can afford and more. And that doesn’t even begin to get into the HIPAA violation fines and audit-related expenses.
Ultimately, investing in the right Managed IT Services is far less expensive than trying to remediate a preventable data breach or dealing with recurring downtime and issues that a provider should fix right the first time.
If your practice is outsourcing your IT, it should be with a managed services provider like Macatawa Technologies that has the specific knowledge and expertise to help protect your practice from the risk of cyberattacks and PHI exposure while improving your overall HIPAA compliance.
We can take the burden of your practice’s IT off your shoulders so you can focus on your patients. Contact us.
