Hipaa Storage Of Paper Medical Records

Physical safeguards are defined in the hipaa security series as physical measures policies and procedures to protect a covered entity s systems and related building and equipment from natural and environmental hazards and unauthorized intrusion.

Hipaa storage of paper medical records.

They can physically store your records at a protected location retrieve files for you and scan all or some of your files when you need them. The hipaa guidelines for medical records do not exclusively apply to medical records that are created stored or transmitted electronically. In 2012 there were more breaches involving medical records on paper covered by hipaa than electronic records 45 from mid may to mid june. Your emr may not take up the physical office space that your paper records once did but the demand for storage space for these files will only grow.

In order to maintain hipaa compliance with your paper record storage you need to think about physical safeguards. What to do about electronic storage. Hacking information doesn t just happen to digital information. Maintaining hipaa compliance across digital paper records hipaa compliance must remain a top priority even as organizations utilize printers scanners and faxes to monitor different types of.

Assess risks to the data potential results of related attacks and how likely they are to occur. Here is how you move forward. Paper records and electronic records need to be treated the same don t forget about the paper. Medical records and phi must be stored where there is controlled access we recommend that medical records and phi stored in hallways that are accessible by unauthorized individuals should be in locked cabinets.

Set up security protections against the risks discovered. Record the security steps that are taken and why they were taken as relevant. No open shelves in a patient or research subject area. Do you manage your backups internally or is it time to consider looking outside your practice for hipaa compliant backup storage.

What are physical safeguards.