HIPAA Certification: Get HIPAA Certified in Week

So, what’s the big hullabaloo about HIPAA certifications? Can getting one help your organization? While nothing can prevent a healthcare organization from an audit, getting a third-party HIPAA certification demonstrates your compliance posture.

Read on to learn what is HIPAA Certification and how to get HIPAA certification.

What is HIPAA Certification?

HIPAA compliance certification is an indication that a covered entity, such as a healthcare provider or business associate, has successfully completed a third-party HIPAA compliance program. This further indicates that the covered entity was HIPAA-compliant at the time of completion. Post that time, the HIPAA certification doesn’t serve as a guarantee of compliance.

If you have more questions on whether you are a covered entity, we have a simple checklist for you to make the decision:

In simple words, HIPAA certification refers to a healthcare organisation or business associate in healthcare, meets the standards of Privacy, Security and Breach notification rules under HIPAA.

HIPAA compliance certification for companies costs can start from $10000 and exceed $150000 depending on the nature and complexity of the organization’s requirements. It takes 2 weeks or more to complete the HIPAA certification process.

HIPAA certification takes on two essential forms: first, as a momentary accreditation that demonstrates an organization’s success in a HIPAA compliance certification. The other is how your company’s workforce has attained the HIPAA certification expertise level by complying with the policies.

Healthcare organizations and related entities receive the certification by following the protocols related to privacy, security, and breach protection requirements of HIPAA.

When you seek HIPAA accreditation, it compels businesses to adopt the best privacy practices and implement the administrative, technical, and physical safeguards outlined in the HIPAA Security Rule.

Refer to the below video for a complete HIPAA compliance checklist:

Why HIPAA Certification is important to Healthcare Providers?

HIPAA accreditation holds importance to healthcare organizations on multiple counts. Healthcare providers often pursue compliance with HIPAA regulations as a crucial aspect of their operations. And this also because, failure to do so can result in severe legal consequences, including fines and penalties.

Here are the 4 important points you should be aware of:

1. Know your compliance status

Compliance with HIPAA isn’t optional. Besides, failure to comply can be pretty expensive. So, a certification audit, even by a third-party consultant, can help the healthcare industry understand its compliance status. It can showcase gaps and oversights in their compliance readiness.

2. Showcase a proactive approach to HIPAA

HHS expects organizations to take decisive action to meet HIPAA standards continually. Even though certifications don’t stand as proof of future compliance, they demonstrate that the organization has made its ‘good faith’ efforts to get compliant with HIPAA and may stand it in good stead in case of a breach or an audit.

3. Stand out from the crowd

It’s one thing to say you are HIPAA compliant, and it’s another to have a credible third-party assessor back your compliance claim. By law, HIPAA makes it mandatory for covered entities to work with HIPAA-compliant vendors. As HIPAA-certified business associates, you can somewhat reduce deal frictions when prospecting opportunities with covered entities.

4. Add to your HIPAA documentation

HIPAA certification carried out by a professional services organization can make for reliable documentation that your organization can share with prospects regarding your compliance status.

Top 6 HIPAA certification training courses for individuals and organizations

HIPAA training is crucial to educate individuals and staff about the importance of protecting PHI and how to handle sensitive data. There are a number of well-known HIPAA training programs that both individuals and organizations can leverage.

Here are 6 such HIPAA training providers:

HIPAA training by US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

The HHS provides free training material for individuals and organizations to enable them to implement privacy and security safeguards. It contains an overall view of HIPAA rules, enforcement best practices, technical control assistance, security FAQs, details on penalties, and real-world examples to facilitate understanding of HIPAA.

If you are just starting out, this is a recommended resource to build foundational knowledge.

HIPAATraining.com

HIPAAtraining.com offers custom training materials for individuals based on their roles and for organizations based on their types.

For individuals, a self-paced online training program with a two-year certification is designed. You can take up to 90 days to complete the training and take the exam. There is no limit on the number of retakes, and the cost of taking one course starts from $29.99.

HIPAA awareness and security training courses are available for organizations looking to implement a training program. You can obtain custom quotes based on the number of employees that require training in the organization. For example, if there are only 1-9 employees to train, the cost remains $29.99 per person. However, for 200-299 employees, the cost reduces to $14.99 per person.

Accountable HQ

Accountable HQ is a popular security training platform that offers HIPAA training for individuals and employees. Individuals can learn about HIPAA basics such as PHI and business associate agreements through videos. These videos are free to access but to receive a certification of completion, you will be required to pay a fee.
Organizations that wish to arrange for HIPAA training for employees can book a call with their experts and get a custom quote. Some popular plans are:

• $399 per month with training, certificates, document support and expert advice
• $1500 per month with privacy officer as a service and audit support in addition to the services mentioned above 

HIPAA associates

HIPAA associates is another training platform for individual and group training programs. These courses cover the full scope of HIPAA regulations

• For individuals, the courses range from HIPAA compliance training, HIPAA business associate training and HIPAA IT professionals training to HIPAA for clinical trial professionals training and HIPAA for health information management. Each course is tailored for a specific audience. So while doctors, nurses and hospital personnel can opt for a HIPAA compliance training, people in medical billing can take the business associate training course.
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