In today’s world, security breaches have become very common. Firms and organizations try their best not to find themselves in this sticky situation because such a situation can really damage the firm’s overall reputation and can also contribute towards the firm losing its current and potential customers. People are very careful and sensitive about their information and therefore they do not use the services of the firms that do not value their privacy. Hence, in order for such customers to come on board and use their services, firms must ensure that they are HIPAA compliant. HIPAA is an acronym for the Health Insurance Protection and Accountability Act and basically plays the role of protecting any sort of patient’s health information that can end up in the wrong hands. If you need more information on HIPAA or looking for consultation, this site will help.
There are certain things that must be kept in mind as to why firms are now looking to become HIPAA compliant. Firstly, privacy is something that must be valued by all firms and firms that do not value it, end up on the losing side, and ultimately lose customers, adversely impacting their profitability as well. Secondly, in today’s competitive environment, firms are already in the race to do whatever they can in order to become the preference of the customer, and being HIPAA compliant is one such thing that can set a firm apart from the rest. So firms that are not HIPAA compliant are really missing out on a potential opportunity to increase their customer base and ultimately the opportunity to maximize profitability.
Five Main Components
The HIPAA compliance comes with five key components without which the entire act is incomplete and also completely useless. These five components are in accordance with the 1996 act and really cover all the important aspects of the act. These components are as follows.
Focus on Health Care Access
This component of the act basically regulates the entire availability of any sort insurance plans whether they be for groups or individuals. This component also enables all individuals to take into account their exclusion period and also limit it. This part also explains the significant break stage. This is basically the 63-day period that individual usually goes through without any sort of insurance coverage.
Preventing Health Care Fraud
This component deals primarily with the privacy of the individuals and also implements all the rules necessary to maintain private information within the entire system and not allow any sort of security breach or information leakage.
Tax-Related Health Provisions
This is the component that is concerned mainly with taxes and government authorities. This standardizes the amount someone might have to pay or might have saved per person. This component also makes the medical savings account become available to all the users.
Application of Group Health Insurance Requirements
This component deals with all the requirements involved in the group health plans for this purpose.
Revenue Offset for Employees
The last component is concerned with the provisions of the life insurance that is owned by the company for its employees.