HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software Market
What is HIPAA?
The United States passed legislation in 1996 to ensure all individuals’ medical data privacy and safeguarding. In the middle of that year, President Bill Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and included five main sections:
HIPAA section I
The first section gives protection for maintaining medical insurance coverage for any person changing or losing their job. It also forbids group plans from refusing people with prior conditions and diseases to cover and bars them from setting lifetime coverage limits.
HIPAA section II
Section II expresses that the US Department of Health and Human Services should initiate a national standard for processing electronic medical care. In addition, all medical care organizations should also implement security measures for medical data access and respect privacy legislation.
HIPAA section III
section III of the HIPAA act gives guidelines for tax provisions and health care.
HIPAA section IV
The fourth section says the medical insurance reform in greater detail. It expresses the facilities for those who look for continued coverage under the act and the laws respecting former conditions.
HIPAA section V
Under section V, services are for people who give up their US citizenship and affect their income tax. It also states rules for company-owned life insurance plans.
For anyone working in medical care information technology, HIPAA compliance means attaching to the requirements of section II, known as the provisions of Administrative Simplification.
Compliance Requirements of section II:
- Every healthcare body, such as providers, plans, employers, and individuals, should have a ten-digit national provider identifier number (NPI).
- Companies should submit and process claims following a standardized electronic data interchange (EDI) protocol.
- The Standards for Privacy of Individually recognizable medical details, or Privacy Rule, initiates nationwide standards for the protection of patient medical information.
- The Security Standards is about the safety of Electronic Protected medical details, or Security Rule sets the standard for data security of patient records.
- The HIPAA Enforcement Rule states guidelines for investigating compliance violations of HIPAA.
The HIPAA Omnibus Rule executes alterations to HIPAA concerning any companion of a covered object. In addition, it increases compliance violation penalties to a maximum of $1.6 million per incident.
A HIPAA negligence can be critical financial trouble for a medical care company. Under Omnibus, the HIPAA Breach Notification Rules declare all business partners must report all patients of the violation and show the cost of such notifications. The people are then audited and pay fines. Lastly, providers could face criminal prosecution for their transgressions.
HIPAA compliance training programs decrease an organization’s danger of administrative action. There is no official compliance certification for HIPAA, but many organizations offer certificates to prove completed compliance training. In addition, the US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) provides six programs teaching compliance rules, and some numerous private groups and consultants can hire as well.
HIPAA Compliance
Regulations such as HIPAA require clearness first and principle. Any activity turn around regulated data systems may audit. Therefore, there must be checks and balances and procedures in place within the organizational arrangement to ensure that electronically protected health information (EPHI) is:
- Not reachable to anyone except those who have a verified business necessity for it
- Carefully monitored during such access
- Encrypted while in storage and during the transfer on any unprotected network, and only move to authorized locations
The above requirements consider four primary practices central to HIPAA compliance, as described below. Within these are many other aspects crucial to data security, such as data loss protection, secure backup of data, process and technical controls, network configuration, and the human element necessary to work efficiently.
Identity Management and Access Controls
Access controls are a great example of the necessity for technology within the data flow. Custodians, supervisors, and owners should be involved in who can access secure EPHI. Unfortunately, there is no standard for technology in this.
However, hiring identity and access management tools is brilliant for anybody wishing to follow HIPAA. It would be nearly impossible to control access and related records of requests, approvals, and denials without such technology. In addition, technological systems can more help by automating the critical account privilege recertification.
System and Environment Configuration Controls
Any system that stores protected data should configure under stringent guidelines. It is imperative to know the state of critical systems at any given time within the regulated environment; simple monitoring is not sufficient when protecting data of this magnitude.
Each system should be separate, configured solely for its unique purpose, monitored for vulnerability, and ensure that all software versions are up-to-date and administered securely.
Monitoring
It is crucial while controlling sensible details to know who has access at every time. Under HIPAA, it is not only the data that monitoring but the access to said data. Any application or technology that allows access to information must have a means of logging access, which should monitor strictly.
Information Flow Control and Encryption
Data must be protected where it is stored. But in this age of technology, information never sits long in one place. Therefore, the fourth and final compliance element should secure details at all times. It must always be encoded through transfer and may only move to secure previously approved locations.
HIPAA compliance is not an easy job to achieve. As a combination, it can appear pretty complex and practically indistinct. But when broken down into primary segments, HIPAA compliance is possible for any company wishing to be go-ahead in its endeavors.
First, figure out who will be in charge of compliance within the organization, and set the policies necessary to comply. Next, get the technology required to maintain access controls and data security. Finally, have those responsible trained through a compliance class?
You can untwist the rough patches and adjust policies as necessary as you go, but the first steps must be identifying what needs to be protected, who will do so, and how they will do it!
HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software Market Overview:
HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software research study describes the market size of different segments and countries by historical years and determines the values for the next six years. Qualitative and quantitative elements of HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software industry include market share and market size that respects each country concerned in the competitive marketplace.
Further, the study also feeds to and provides in-depth statistics about the crucial elements of HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software which includes drivers & restraining factors that help estimate the future growth outlook of the market.
The segments and sub-section of the HIPAA Compliant Accounting Software market are below:
- The study segmented by following Product/Service Types: On-premises & Cloud-based
- Primary applications/end-users industry are as follows: SMEs & Large Enterprises.
Some of the key members in the market are Sage Intacct, Kareo Billing, Medisoft, Cliniko, Better Clinics, NetSuite, NueMD, Sage X3, Xero, and CollaborateMD.
HIPAA-Compliant Healthcare Cloud Accounting Software
The exclusive medical care accounting software initiate by the AICPA and Healthcare Financial Management Association Peer Reviewed.
HIPAA has protected patients’ private medical records. As a result, a healthcare practice must adhere to HIPAA regulations, and beyond that, the software used to manage your practice must also be HIPAA-compliant. As a result, it can be frustrating for healthcare providers who find a solution, only to discover it needs all-important compliance features.
While some HIPAA-compliant software has been built especially for the medical care industry, users may dislike these products’ awkward interfaces or poor capabilities. Thankfully, there is a best-in-class cloud accounting software with an excellent feature set for the healthcare industry, including HIPAA compliance—Sage Intacct.
About Sage Intacct
Why is Sage Intacct a best-in-class cloud accounting software? Because Sage Intacct offers broad functionality in particular sections of accounting and financial management. Users with an internet connection can access data from this software at any time and from any device. As the best solution, Sage Intacct also claims an open API, integrating with many other best solutions.
Avertium reviewed Sage Intacct under its HIPAA Compliance Program (HCP) and granted the software a “Compliant” status. In September 2020, Sage Intacct became the first and only cloud financial management system to receive a Peer Reviewed designation from the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA).
Sage Intacct’s compliance features and its multi-currency and multi-entity capabilities make it a compliant yet flexible system.
Solutions like QuickBooks Enterprise and Oracle NetSuite often consider alongside Sage Intacct. However, while these offer broad functionality, they lack the HIPAA-compliant features that make Sage Intacct viable for healthcare organizations.
Sage Intacct’s HIPAA-Compliant Features
Sage Intacct’s features attach to HIPAA guidelines so that medical care companies can benefit from a proficient financial management system while still maintaining the administrative agreement.
Advanced Audit Trail
Monitoring the accessibility of patient info ensures the software protects the patients’ protected health information (PHI). Sage Intacct’s Advanced Audit Trail can follow the path and edit the history of a given record. Cloud software is known for its ease of accessibility from different devices. Sage Intacct accounts for this by logging all types of file access, including lists and dropdown views, inclusion in reports, and the use of third-party software. In addition, advanced Audit Trails can track file access for contacts, vendors, and patient records.
EMR Integrations
Don’t worry about Sage Intacct not synching with your existing electronic medical record (EMR) programs. Sage Intacct’s open API means it pairs well with other programs that your company may use. For example, if your practice works with software like MatrixCare or Hybrent, you’ll find it easy to synchronize those solutions with Sage Intacct.
Sage Intacct integrates with your current EMR system, ensuring data transferred between software is secure. In addition, the developers at Sage Intacct have taken steps to protect data flowing through the API; integrations are safe and compliant, offering high-level protection for your PHI.
Additionally, If you want to shift from your current software as you transition to Sage Intacct, you can check out the Sage Intacct Marketplace for healthcare industry add-ons.
Security
One of the essential elements of HIPAA-compliant accounting software is the level of security provided. The cloud is known for its overall high-level security, but Sage Intacct goes forbye to protect your data. Sage Intacct partners with Avertium to achieve protection that is certified HIPAA- and HITECH-compliant. Your software will also update quickly and automatically to keep you on the latest, most protected version of the software.
