8 Things You Should Prepare for Your HIPAA Exams

You have undergone a standard Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) training course and your exams are coming up? It is normal to feel a little uneasy and worried before any type of exam, especially one that could boost your medical career. Following you will find some useful pointers containing the most important eight things you should prepare for your HIPAA exams.

1. The first thing you will have to prepare for your Insurance Act tests will be the purposes of the HIPAA legislation, HIPAA terms and definitions, and the type of organizations linked with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations. You will also need to prove your understanding of penalties implemented for non-compliance incidents, both criminal and civil.

2. In your Insurance Act tests you will have to prove that understand what code sets, national identifiers, and Act covered transactions are as well as to describe how they have to be implemented. You may be asked to examine certain types of transactions learned during the training course.

3. Next, you will need to demonstrate that you understand the steps one needs to take to be compliant with the Act Privacy Rule. If you have attended a more advanced Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act training, you will also have to prepare the steps for complying with the Security Rule.

4. During Act tests you will need to show that you understand the core requirements of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rules, organizational relationships, as well as individual rights to privacy.

5. The types of rules you need to prepare for your Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act tests include requirements in regards to the use and disclosure of protected health information (PHI), the rules for care, payments, and healthcare operations, as well as any rules concerning the disclosure of PHI for public purpose.

6. During Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act tests you may be asked a few questions about technical and electronic threats healthcare that medical organizations are subject to and the right way of implementing various types of safeguards, such as administrative, physical, and technical.

7. Health data protected by Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also includes electronic private health information (EPHI). This is why, for your HIPAA tests, you will also have to study the role of firewall systems, virtual private networks, Windows XP security requirements, wireless networks security requirements, transmission control and internet protocols.

8. Another important chapter you will have to prepare for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act tests is the one dealing with HIPAA solutions. These include risk analysis, the conducting of audit programs, secure transmission of PHI, ongoing training procedures for employees, and steps needed to be taken in case of emergencies.

Top 4 HIPAA Training Procedures

Under US regulations, any covered entity is obliged to train its employees on the matter of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Any organization that uses, transmits, exchanges, or in any other way handles private health information is considered a covered entity and is subject to HIPAA requirements. The way in which employees receive HIPAA training within such an organization is completely up to the employer. Read below to find out the top four training procedures.

1. Employment HIPAA Training

The employer of a covered entity is required by law to provide all staff members with appropriate training for the period of time they work in that respective organization. The training should be initiated as soon as possible after the employees start working and the cost is entirely up to the employee. The type of training (classroom, online, hands-on) is completely up to the employer, but the method of training chosen should be able to support larger groups. In the case of larger institutions, the responsibility for organizing HIPAA training can be delegated to the Human Resources department.

2. Ongoing HIPAA Training

One of the most important HIPAA requirements is that the training employees receive must be ongoing. This is why, anytime HIPAA regulations are updated, the employer has to make sure that staff members are made aware of the changes. This can be accomplished via monthly or bi-annual newsletter containing any new requirements distributed to employees. Another option is to enroll staff members in refresher courses, which are shorter in length than the initial training courses and present more condensed information. Once again, as long as the employer makes sure staff members are trained on a constant basis, the method he or she chooses to do this is not relevant.

3. HIPAA Trainers

If the employer of a covered entity has numerous employees and does not have the necessary time or finances to enroll all of them in training, they can choose only one employee to undergo the training. This employee will pass the training course and become HIPAA certified which will enable him or her to train others within the company. This is an easy solution to training all staff members without spending too much money.

4. HIPAA Training Evaluation

Apart from having to ensure training for all staff members who have direct or indirect contact with protected health information, employers also have the obligation to evaluate the level of training within the organization. This evaluation can consist of security controls performed from time to time to make sure that all employees are compliant with HIPAA procedures. In case misconducts are detected during the security controls, the company has the obligation to report the incident and take countermeasures to prevent this from happening again.

These are the top four training procedures employers of covered entities can use to ensure that their organization is compliant with national regulations. For a maximum efficiency, employers should consider implementing all four HIPAA training procedures as opposed to choosing just one of them.