HIPAA – Document management has never been more important!
HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulates businesses to assure information protection of your patients.
It has never been more important for the medical industry to shred documents prior to disposal. The laws in doing so become subject to both civil and criminal penalties for breaching patient security and privacy.
Hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and many other medical related staff can be prosecuted and actually put in prison for not following these HIPAA guidelines.
Breach of privacy under HIPAA is no longer confined to medical conditions like pregnancy, disease or injury. Any information is now considered private. Proper document and paper shredding must be a vital part of your office function.
Buying your own paper shredding machine does not eliminate your risk, because document destruction cannot be independently certified. Shred Instead says, shred it with us and eliminate the liabilities! Shred Instead will provide your company with a Certificate of Destruction.
Do you have boxes of archived documents? Are you keeping documents in boxes archived with a third party? The use of third party bailment agents or storage units does not relieve or make you exempt from the responsibility of HIPAA responsibilities. Shred Instead again says shred it! Shred Instead has trucks with large shredding machines to handle proper document destruction on site, no matter how many boxes you have.
What are the penalties for violation? Maximum fines and penalties for failure to comply with the HIPAA laws is $250,000 and 10 years imprisonment. If prosecutors are successful with a conviction, additional civil judgments and penalties could surely follow.
Contact Shred Instead today and say “let’s shred it!”
Contact me to start my professional document shredding service.
