If you want to stand any chance of selling services to the healthcare market, you must have a good answer in handling the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
And if you serve the New York area, with all its hospitals and health facilities, HIPPAA compliance could be worth its weight in penicillin.
Two providers, who share a data center, got positive results this week from their HIPPAA test.
GalaxyVisions and ColoGuard together announced that an audit proves they are in compliance, and can be trusted with medical records and related protected patient information. ColoGuard is the colocation provider for GalaxyVisions, as well as an array of New York area hospitals.
“We have always prided ourselves on holding ourselves to the strictest standards in the industry. Our HIPAA certification confirms it,” said Raymond Sidler, chief executive and co-founder of GalaxyVisions and ColoGuard. “We look forward to continuing and expanding our work with health-care providers as they grow their digital operations in a cost-effective way.”
To past muster, MSPs must prove to auditors they can securely and private transmit, store and collect health information, and that information is both kept confidential and available.
Passing the HIPPAA test is a feather in the cap not just for soliciting healthcare customers, but for anyone who values privacy.
The tests were done by IS Partners LLC of Horsham, Pa.
“IS Partners has ascertained risks and vulnerabilities to EPHI, and has determined that ColoGuard and GalaxyVisions have internal controls in place to protect health information, and that both companies are compliant with standards established by HIPAA,” remarked John DeCesare, president and CEO of IS Partners, LLC.
Based on ObamaCare, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act, healthcare shops are incentive to move to electronic medical records, designed to save money, improve sharing, and made these records faster and easier to access.
That is leading many healthcare companies into the hands of MSPs.
“Healthcare providers who don’t have the space or the resources to establish their own data centers now have an affordable option,” Sidler said. “Medical colocation with ColoGuard enables providers to leverage our infrastructure – and our HIPAA certified datacenter – to meet the demands of the new healthcare law, improve patient care and become more efficient organizations overall.”
HIPPA Not Just Trendy, but Critical
MSP consultancy Ulistic is advising medical customers to insure their MSPs do HIPPAA right, that that MSPs hoping to serve this market make themselves compliant. “Is your managed services business adhering to the standards for HIPAA compliance?” Ulistic asks, and answers: “If not, you need to be.”
One problem is that business associates of medical companies are responsible for many of the breeches, as much as a fifth. These companies include collections agencies, records providers, shredding outfits, transcribers, and of course IT service providers.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
