How To Obtain Your HIPAA Certification Online

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) gives patients autonomy over who has access to their sensitive health information, lists patients’ rights, and sets standards for proper security protocols for handling important data. Its overall goal aims to protect patients and allow them to practice their rights while creating an ethical, secure health care system. Being a HIPAA-certified healthcare practice offers a range of benefits for you and your clients. Here’s everything you need to know about how to obtain your HIPAA certification online.

The Purpose of HIPAA Certification

No matter the type of service, all businesses in the healthcare industry handle and collect sensitive personal information about their patients. Such information includes names, addresses, various important dates, private account numbers, contacts, and health records. As we mentioned, HIPAA ensures the safety of a patient’s data and mandates specific actions to prevent misinformation and to prevent the records from falling into the wrong hands or being used inappropriately.

The HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules set the foundation for properly securing private information and for ethical practices surrounding one’s privacy rights. Complying with HIPAA establishes trust with patients and their importance; moral-based conventions; and fewer potential security issues such as fraud. HIPAA certification shows that a business has taken the measures to learn, implement, and comply with HIPAA standards.

Online Compliance Training

Many companies find that having their employees take some of their required training online provides a range of benefits and provides more flexibility compared to offering in-person training sessions. Online HIPAA compliance training allows you to obtain your certification digitally and keep an electronic record in a safe, easy-to-access location.

What’s Covered in Online Compliance Training?

HIPAA-approved training covers several important topics. The main focuses of the training range from the two main HIPAA rules to general outlines of HIPAA and other important counterpart acts, such as the HITECH Act and Omnibus Rule. Online training sessions also include quizzes, activities, and visual and audio content, further enhancing the experience and success of the training.

Benefits of Online Training

Compared to in-person training sessions, online versions offer numerous benefits, including:

• Time: Train at your own pace and at any time 24-7-365.

• On-demand: Eliminates the need for an instructor or facilitator but includes lines of communication to experts when necessary.

• Location: Train at work, at home, or anywhere.

• Easier training management: Online training doesn’t require extra books or lots of paperwork. Instead, you can manage all necessary courses and materials digitally.

• Increased productivity: Instead of interrupting schedules and setting up allocated times and spaces for meetings, people can train anywhere and at any available time without coordinating with others and avoiding conflicts.

• Cost efficiency: Compared to other training methodologies, online training requires you to purchase only a single course, minimizing costs of purchasing training manuals, various paperwork, and different educational sources. Online training provides your business with a one-stop shop for training tools.

Getting Certified

Getting certified online is easy. After you complete and pass the online course, the platform automatically issues the certificate. Like the online training itself, digital copies of the certification provide their own list of benefits. Electronic certifications ensure easy access to the document; prevent you from losing the document and having to file for another; provide you with a quality, credible certification; and make sending proof of completed compliance training a seamless process.

Common Certification Questions

Here are a few common questions regarding HIPAA certification:

How Long Do Certifications Last?

HIPAA certifications are valid for one year from the date that training was completed. A 12-month certificate encourages healthcare professionals to retake HIPAA compliance training yearly, ensuring that they refresh their learning and correctly implement the protocols. Regular training also keeps you on top of policy changes, making sure everyone operates under the latest standards.

Who Does the Certification Pertain To?

HIPAA compliance certification is federally mandated for all covered entities and business associates listed in HIPAA. According to the Act, all types of healthcare providers—including medical and dental offices, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses—that use electronic transactions and filing systems fall under covered entities. All parties and employees that have access to patient information must undergo training and obtain certification, even if their jobs don’t involve directly working with patients.

Is HIPAA Certification the Same in All States?

Patient privacy rules may differ depending on your location. In certain states, state-enacted rules can augment federal HIPAA law. In those cases, ensure that you’re training on both the federal- and state-specific rules.

What Happens If You Fail Training Quizzes and Activities?

A good training program includes some way of assessing understanding, usually in the form of a quiz. HIPAA rules don’t specifically require a test, but passing an assessment ensures you’ve obtained a sufficient level of understanding of the material. It’s recommended that you opt for training programs that provide feedback and guidance should you get a test question wrong so that you can ensure you’re implementing the required safeguards in the right way. Then, when you retake the quiz, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your mastery of the content.

What’s most important here is that you actually conduct HIPAA training. Failing to comply with or train in HIPAA means your business may be missing key privacy protections and therefore putting people’s data at risk. Various violations can lead to a range of penalties, including hefty fines and citations, which also can affect your company’s reputation.

Learning how to obtain your HIPAA certification online leads you one step closer to HIPAA compliance. Online certification offers a range of benefits, from the training aspect of compliance to the productivity and operation of your business. Being HIPAA certified shows your patients that you care about them and enhances the healthcare industry’s ethics and practices. Since HIPAA came to fruition after the rise of electronic filing and transactions, HIPAA certification also allows you to digitally upgrade your system and implement more technical advancements within your workplace.