Any contact centers that collect personal and private health data from clients need to be HIPAA-compliant. What’s more—if you’re working with other partners or vendors that are managing, storing or otherwise have access to private health data, you’ll need to ensure they’re also HIPAA compliant. While compliance can feel overwhelming, it’s essential for call centers to understand—a HIPAA compliance violation can be an enormous setback, costing you time, money and resources as you resolve the violation, and likely costing you customers in the long run.

But in a time where technology—and compliance requirements—are changing regularly, how can you ensure that all of your customer communication processes are HIPAA compliant? We’ll break down the requirements for call centers and everything you need to know.

HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a law passed by the federal government in 1996. This law sets guidelines for all companies and organizations that collect protected health information (PHI).

Most of the guidelines fall into one of two categories: privacy and security. These guidelines dictate how PHI should be recorded within the contact center, as well as how it should be shared with providers or other vendors. These requirements are designed to help avoid data breaches and protect the privacy of customers, patients, and consumers.

Call centers that are HIPAA-compliant have implemented all HIPAA compliance requirements, such as:

• Encrypting data
• Protecting passwords
• Securely storing data

All staff members are familiar with HIPAA requirements and know how to properly handle and transfer PHI.

So why should you care about having contact center HIPAA verification?

Above all else, HIPAA call centers are more trustworthy, reputable, and secure. Other vendors will be more likely to work with you if you’re HIPAA-compliant, and patients will be more comfortable offering sensitive information.

And although security is the biggest perk of HIPAA compliance, following these requirements offers other noteworthy benefits, too. Contact centers that are HIPAA-compliant can also improve response times, increase efficiency, and increase customer or patient satisfaction. HIPAA compliance allows call centers to more easily send patient information to physicians, and boosts accountability among agents.

Understanding HIPAA requirements is essential for knowing which contact center software, answering services and other tools will help your team stay compliant. After all, if you don’t know the compliance requirements, it will be difficult to understand which tools provide adequate security for collecting and storing health data. Three key factors to look for include software that offer data encryption, secure messaging and (if needed) HIPAA training for agents or users.

1. Data Encryption

Most servers do not offer the level of security required by HIPAA. In order to be compliant, your email server must encrypt all data, making it indecipherable to would-be hackers.

2. Appointment-Setting Protection

Even if your company doesn’t store medical records, patients may offer a lot of sensitive information regarding their health during a phone call. For this reason, all appointment-setting processes should be highly confidential.

3. Secure Text Messaging

Does your call center communicate with physicians and other providers via text message? If so, those texts need to be stored in a secure, cloud-based system, rather than on an individual’s mobile device. HIPAA regulations also dictate that those messages should be sent and received in real-time.

4. HIPAA Training for Agents

It’s essential to ensure that every contact center agent and team member has a clear understanding of current HIPAA requirements. When agents are not properly trained on compliance requirements, data breaches become more likely. Ongoing training and compliance verification tests can help ensure agents know the requirements well and are adhering to them.

Electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR) play a significant part in helping your organization maintain HIPAA compliance. They ensure the privacy and security of patients’ PHI through:

• Tight access controls
• Data encryption
• Compliance reporting
• Audit trails
• And much more

At ROI CX Solutions, we specialize in seamlessly integrating with our clients’ EMR systems to optimize their operations, ensure continuous HIPAA compliance and improve patient privacy and security outcomes. Our team has deep experience with EMRs, including Epic, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, Athena and proprietary systems. We can work in any major EMR/EHR system, assisting with buildout, editing and optimization as needed for improved functionality, data safety and performance.

We’re Epic Approved

We’re proud to be an approved BPO vendor in Epic’s EHR system, which is widely used across the healthcare industry. Our Epic approval equips us to easily connect your Epic EHR system to our telephony systems, work within your EHR and ensure seamless information flow and support.

When it comes to your HIPAA compliance, our Epic certification demonstrates our system proficiency and gives you peace of mind that our experts are reputable, trustworthy and trained in HIPAA regulatory requirements. Using an Epic-approved team means less training and minimal risk for your organization.

Overwhelmed at the thought of meeting all HIPAA requirements? If so, keep in mind that one of the best ways to ensure compliance is by choosing to outsource to a HIPAA-compliant call center.

ROI CX Solutions is HIPAA HITRUST compliant, and offers the highest quality contact center services. We’ll act as an extension of your own company, treating every patient as if they were our own. Gain peace of mind, save money, and spend more time growing your business. ROI CX Solutions is here to take care of your contact center needs.