hippha and the patient portal

Are patient portals the future of patient information access?

Sep 09, 2019 · Patient Portals and the HIPAA Security Rule. Healthcare providers frequently allow patients to access their electronic health records (EHRs) through a patient portal. Online patient portals allow patients to view their medical records, schedule appointments, and even request refills of prescriptions, anywhere the patient has access to the Internet. Patient portals contain …

What are my rights under HIPAA regarding electronic Phi (ePHI)?

A HIPAA compliant client portal must secure patient information – which is why a custom HIPAA compliant web hosting portal can be an especially delicate prospect. Below, we explore a recent request our sales team received for such a portal, and how to go about meeting the requirements for a HIPAA compliant client portal.

How many consumers access patient data through patient portal in 2016?

Not only does a patient portal raise privacy issues, but also it most certainly will have HIPAA security issues. You must include a patient portal in your risk assessment. I strongly suggest that you do so before permitting patient use. But if you haven’t previously done so, get on it!

Is Phi “readily producible” for purposes of providing access?

Mar 23, 2020 · A HIPAA Patient Portal is a form of patient engagement in which health care providers can share information with a patient. If said information includes PHI and medical records, the patient portal must be HIPAA compliant.

What does HIPAA have to say about patient portals?

Are patient portals HIPAA compliant?

What safeguards are included in patient portals?

What is a patient portal and what is it used for?

Are patient portals confidential?

Is Facebook portal HIPAA compliant?

How do you improve patient portals?

How does patient portal improve patient care?

What safeguards can be used to protect a patient's EHR?

What are the benefits and challenges of using patient portals?

What are the different types of patient portals?

Why do patients not use patient portals?

What is patient portal?

As you likely know, a patient portal is an product that allows patients to access parts of their medical records maintained by their providers. Patients log onto portals from their personal computers, tablets, or smartphones. One EHR vendor listed the following benefits of patient portals:

What is access in PHI?

The access is reasonably likely to endanger the life or physical safety of the individual or another. The PHI references another person, and access is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to that individual. The request is by a personal representative, and access is reasonably likely to cause harm to the individual or another.

What is PHI in healthcare?

The PHI references another person, and access is reasonably likely to cause substantial harm to that individual. The request is by a personal representative, and access is reasonably likely to cause harm to the individual or another. The PHI was obtained from a non-health care provider under a promise of confidentiality.

Why are portals important?

Allowing patients to make appointments themselves on the portal and request medication refills helps streamline otherwise time-consuming tasks. Improve communications.

What is a personal representative?

A personal representative―that is, the holder of a health care power of attorney, a guardian, or an executor or an administrator of the estate of the decedent―exercises the rights of the individual, including the right to access in form or format requested if readily producible.

Who is Kirsty from Bridge Patient Portal?

Community Manager at Bridge Patient Portal. Kirsty is an experienced marketer with a demonstrated history of working in the medical and software industry. She is skilled in digital marketing, including SEO copywriting. Kirsty marries her passion for healthcare with her experience in digital marketing.

Is HIPAA compliant important?

As you can see, being HIPAA compliant is extremely important and very costly if disregarded. Offer your patients a HIPAA compliant patient portal with Bridge Patient Portal.

What is HIPAA Privacy?

What Is HIPAA? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects patients’ privacy by limiting access to PHI (Protected Health Information) and governing acceptable use of their health data. The HIPAA Privacy Rule is composed of national regulations for the use and disclosure of PHI in healthcare treatment, payment, ...

What is protected health information?

Protected Health Information (PHI) is any information that is held by a covered entity regarding a patient’s health status, provision of health care, or health care payment.

What are patient portals?

Patient portals generate many associated mandatory and medical compliance issues. Practices must consider their business associates and chain-of-trust issues that arise when sending information by electronic transmission. Medical companies deal with insurance companies, Internet service providers, labs, pharmacies, billing and coding services, hospitals and other practices across different medical-related specialties.

How do portals benefit patients?

The benefits of patient portals increase exponentially with each patient who uses one, so encouraging patients and their families to use the portals can strengthen the cost-value and time-saving advantages of the technology. Surveys show that medical practices can optimize portal use by engaging Millennials and Baby Boomers to meet Stage 2 Medicare/Medicaid requirements, but these campaigns can work effectively for all patients. [3] Business concerns necessarily impact each medical practice, but decision-makers can enhance the benefits of adopting patient portals with strong campaigns to encourage patient use. Best practices for optimizing patient use include:

What are the challenges of implementing HIPAA compliant patient portals?

The challenges of implementing HIPAA compliant patient portals depend on a provider's IT infrastructure and its operating system's complexity and interoperability. There are also the legal and regulatory requirements that include meeting mandatory HIPAA guidelines and voluntary best practices. The challenges of HIPAA compliant portal development include:

What is the HIPAA Privacy Rule?

The HIPAA Privacy Rule gives patients the right to obtain copies of their medical records, treatments and protected health information or PHI. These requirements go further if medical providers want to receive reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid -- patients must be able to access their records online, download copies and transmit the information to third-party providers. Most medical practices are finding it necessary to develop patient portals where patients and physicians can interact, share information and perform important functions such as practices billing patients and accepting payments online. HIPAA standards rule requires that these patient portals have strong security and privacy protections to prevent unauthorized access of these confidential PHI records.

1. Epic

Ranking Best in KLAS for the fourth year running, Epic System’s MyChart patient portal is a leader in this space. Epic’s MyChart allows patients easy access to personal and family health information, with the ability to schedule appointments, securely message their doctor and attend e-visits.

2. athenahealth

athenahealth, recently awarded 2020 Best in KLAS: Small Practice Ambulatory EMR/PM, offers healthcare providers a cloud-based platform for managing electronic health records (EHR), telehealth, care coordination, patient engagement, and medical billing.

3. Mend

Mend delivers a complete cloud-based telehealth and patient engagement platform to medium and large healthcare organizations. Individuals and smaller practices may also take advantage of the platform via a free option which offers limited features.

4. Ambra Health

Ambra Health is an award-winning, cloud-based medical data and image management suite. Ambra Health offers an easy-to-use patient portal, replacing CDs as the traditional and less secure means of image sharing. This platform can also be easily integrated with other popular EHR systems, including athenahealth.

5. Elation Health EHR

Elation Health’s cloud-based and ONC certified EHR platform delivers a clinical-first patient management solution. Their patient passport allows access to secure messaging, doctor’s notes, and medical information.

6. TheraNest

TheraNest provides a web-based mental health practice management platform that is fully HIPAA-compliant. Patients can access an efficient portal, allowing them to complete and sign intake forms, build custom forms, schedule appointments, manage their bills, and exchange HIPAA-compliant messages with their physician.

7. Bridge

Bridge is a leading HIPAA-compliant and ONC-certified patient portal solution that can integrate seamlessly with any existing EHR. It offers a comprehensive selection of features including patient registration, appointment scheduling, secure messaging, bill management, and access to medical records.

How to protect PHI?

The Security Rule dictates that there should be protections in place physically, technically, and administratively so that electronic PHI is kept safe. Healthcare plans, providers, and clearinghouses have to do the following: 1 Make sure that all the protected health data they create, store, receive, or send is available, uncorrupted, and kept private. 2 Locate and set up defenses against any elements of the environment that could sabotage the integrity or security of data. 3 Set up protections so that uses or disclosures that are foreseeable and are not allowed under the law do not occur. 4 Make sure that everyone on staff stays compliant with HIPAA.

What is a healthcare professional?

A healthcare professional was researching a client portal solution for her organization. She was setting up a one-stop shop for each of the client facilities through which all users could access a shared docs area, a secure document portal, a navigation area for online resources, and other tools. The executive wanted to build a system that would include content/version management and that could reflect any modifications immediately across several different sites.

Why can't I access PHI?

An individual does not have a right to access PHI that is not part of a designated record set because the information is not used to make decisions about individuals. This may include certain quality assessment or improvement records, patient safety activity records, or business planning, development, and management records that are used for business decisions more generally rather than to make decisions about individuals. For example, a hospital’s peer review files or practitioner or provider performance evaluations, or a health plan’s quality control records that are used to improve customer service or formulary development records, may be generated from and include an individual’s PHI but might not be in the covered entity’s designated record set and subject to access by the individual.

Does HIPAA preempt PHI?

State laws that provide individuals with greater rights of access to their PHI than the Privacy Rule, or that are not contrary to the Privacy Rule, are not preempted by HIPAA and thus still apply. For example, a covered entity subject to a State law that requires that access to PHI be provided to an individual in a shorter time frame than that required in the Privacy Rule must provide such access within the shorter time frame because the State law is not contrary to the Privacy Rule.

Why is it important to have access to health information?

Providing individuals with easy access to their health information empowers them to be more in control of decisions regarding their health and well-being. For example, individuals with access to their health information are better able to monitor chronic conditions, adhere to treatment plans, find and fix errors in their health records, ...

What is the HIPAA Privacy Rule?

With limited exceptions, the HIPAA Privacy Rule (the Privacy Rule) provides individuals with a legal, enforceable right to see and receive copies upon request of the information in their medical and other health records maintained by their health care providers and health plans.

Can I send a copy of my PHI to a third party?

Yes, but only within specific limits. The Privacy Rule permits a covered entity to impose a reasonable, cost-based fee to provide the individual (or the individual’s personal representative) with a copy of the individual’s PHI, or to direct the copy to a designated third party. The fee may include only the cost of certain labor, supplies, and postage:

Does HIPAA override state laws?

In contrast to State laws that authorize higher or different fees than are permitted under HIPAA, HIPAA does not override those State laws that provide individuals with greater rights of access to their health information than the HIPAA Privacy Rule does. See 45 CFR 160.202 and 160.203.

Can a covered entity deny access to PHI?

A covered entity may deny an individual access to all or a portion of the PHI requested in only very limited circumstances. For example, a covered entity may deny an individual access if the information requested is not part of a designated record set maintained by the covered entity (or by a business associate for a covered entity), or the information is excepted from the right of access because it is psychotherapy notes or information compiled in reasonable anticipation of, or for use in, a legal proceeding (but the individual retains the right to access the underlying PHI from the designated record set (s) about the individual used to generate this information).