For healthcare providers, medical billing services play a significant role. They require access to patient information, though, for more than just creating claims. A company can continuously provide patients with treatment thanks to the patient data. Before recommending a course of therapy, even the clinicians themselves share patient data. Thus, patient data must be sufficiently protected to prevent data piracy problems. The HIPAA Compliance Act mandates that all medical billing services in the USA protect patient health information.
Let’s quickly review what HIPAA is before continuing. And how are medical billing services capable of complying with HIPAA? What are the most important factors to consider while handling HIPAA compliance in a practice’s revenue collection cycle?

The act governing the portability of health insurance

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was passed into law in 1996. It views the patient’s medical records as sensitive. In order to protect patient information, the US Congress has adopted a nationwide norm. The healthcare representatives were obligated by this federal law. Except for their medical billing services, they are not allowed to disclose a patient’s health information to anyone without the latter’s permission.

Patient Health Information (PHI): What is it?

The definition of PHI includes every piece of information that your medical billing services need to identify patients. Typically, we collect a patient’s name, date of birth, medical history, and information about their insurance. Yet, PHI includes information on a patient’s credentials, family history, etc.

Why do breaches of patient data occur?

Are you aware? Almost 31% of mistakes in breaches of healthcare data are made by people. Such a claim was made in Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report, and the most recent facts back up this conclusion. It is therefore a long-held misconception that data breaches can only be one of the following:
Equipment robberies
Malware or ransomware assaults; hacking;
Physical break-ins to offices
The main cause of healthcare data leaking is human mistakes. The following are the main issues that medical billing services have while trying to collect payments:

• Wrong email address in a forwarded email.
• Addresses on mail delivery envelopes don’t match what’s inside.

However, there are various technology-based strategies and solutions available nowadays. They facilitate various operations and streamline medical billing services. But, it is up to you to make sure that it fully complies with HIPAA rules. There is no doubt that automating the medical billing processes is a smart idea. The following factors should also be taken into account when putting an automated payment solution in place. Together, these factors assist HIPAA compliance in order to prevent any future issues.

Safe Manual Data Entry

Medical billing services often access, transfer, or process data in written or electronic forms. Every time they do so, a point of vulnerability is created, giving hackers the opportunity to seize power. Hence, new automated payment methods have been effectively built by healthcare IT. Hence, this protracted sequence of potential security flaws is now over. Hence, handling and discarding paper forms is not necessary for processing patient billing. An automatic payment method has taken their place.

Patients can enter their payment information immediately with the aid of these automated systems. These methods save staff time while lowering the possibility of errors during manual uploading. Additionally, they minimize the likelihood that patient information will be scattered throughout a healthcare facility while it waits.

Payment information may be considered an identifying trait, so it needs to be properly maintained. Up to $50,000 in fines may be assessed for the loss or misuse of patient data. Luckily, digital payment solutions lessen some of the work involved with maintaining patient information by automating the payment process.

Guarantee Patient Statement Compliance

A practice’s patient statements are automatically covered when it takes a HIPAA compliance strategy to its medical billing services. The patient statements are medical invoices that are delivered to patients by email, SMS, and other means. They contain all the information needed to process the revenue. But, if patients ask for further specifics, it might also contain more information.
For patient data, certain systems offer additional security. Medical billing services use QR codes or URLs in patient statements in these circumstances. To easily access their payment information, patients must securely log in before using these links. Thus, by choosing a payment solution that ensures a secure sign-in and provides access to additional information about the treatment, data protection and patient satisfaction can both be achieved.

Distribution of the right accounting statement

Making the appropriate payment statement is a useful first step. Another responsibility is to provide statements to the appropriate patient. Medical billing services’ automated payment collecting procedures relieve you of this trouble. They make advantage of contemporary methods that produce texts, emails, and statements using the software. The emails are sent and attached to the appropriate address by the payment collection program itself.

Conclusion

The medical billing services payment collection procedure must comply with HIPAA in a number of ways. Nothing, however, can surpass choosing an automated solution for tasks related to medical billing. You can protect your reputation once you effectively adopt HIPAA in your practice. Thus, look for a cutting-edge payment option to aid in the safeguarding of patient data. To choose one of them for your medical billing services, you must exercise caution.