Recent news suggests that HIPAA audits, which were originally designed to be educational rather than punitive, are now shifting more toward enforcement. And if you think maintaining HIPAA compliance is expensive, it’s time to consider what non-compliance will cost.
In fact, the total value of settlements and penalties is reported to have eclipsed $11 million already in 2017, including one single settlement in the amount of $5.5 million. The smallest settlement recorded so far was for $475,000, involving a breach of protected health information (PHI) that was not properly disclosed by a healthcare provider.
Those are just a couple of examples. The bottom line is that HIPAA audits are now a high-stakes affair with real money at risk.
And the risk applies not only to covered entities but also their “business associates,” such as the IT service providers – like ZZ Servers – who might be helping to manage their computing infrastructure.
While this risk might scare off the less sophisticated IT service providers, HIPAA-compliant systems and managed services are among ZZ Servers’ core competencies.
ZZ Servers has pulled together infrastructure, systems hardening, and managed services into convenient, cost-effective solutions that are ideally suited for smaller and medium-sized healthcare service providers. We offer fully dedicated and semi-dedicated HIPAA-enabled hosting solutions.
Each HIPAA environment is custom designed by our system engineers and security specialists to meet the unique needs of a given business, better ensuring HIPAA compliance.
As HIPAA audit enforcement and non-compliance costs rise, partnering with a security-focused IT provider like ZZ Servers is something you can’t afford not to do.
