Top HIPAA Compliance Challenges for Small Health Practices
March 11, 2025
Navigating through this law, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA), is quite tough for small health practices. Compliance means knowing how to protect patient health information against penalties of violation. This article focuses on various common HIPAA compliance challenges that small health practices experience.
Understanding and Implementing HIPAA Requirements
There’s so much in HIPAA. The Privacy Rule and Security Rule create requirements but differ in terms of mandates. The Privacy Rule oversees the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI), and the Security Rule sets standards for safeguarding the ePHI, or Electronic Protected Health Information. It is not often that small practices actually understand what all this is and, thus, they fail to comply fully.
Data Security Against Cyber Threats
Cyber-attacks have increased as regards the health industry. Breaches are exposing patient-sensitive data therein. In 2023, there were more than 167 million Americans whose healthcare data were exposed to compromise due to cybersecurity incidents.
Small practices would find it impossible to implement any robust cybersecurity measures, which makes them highly vulnerable to attacks.
Keeping Policies and Procedures Current
Policies and procedures that are written must conform with the regulation that is new regarding the practice according to HIPAA. Such policies should be updated from time to time to address both new risks and legislatively mandated changes. Small practices have less time and resources to devote to regular updating of such documents, which leads to increased chances of non-compliance.
Carrying Out Periodic Risk Assessments
The capacity to undertake a well-completed risk assessment depends on significant assessment in order to identify existing vulnerabilities in the business with regard to ePHI. Such assessment consists of an evaluation of potential risks and the implementation of measures for their mitigation. Small practices may not have expertise in conducting full assessments, leaving them prone to undetected threats.
Staff Training on HIPAA Compliance
Well-informed staff about US HIPAA offers to prevent inadvertent violations for the practice, and employees trained about their responsibilities, using education to keep them current about their role in the protection of information of patients may be smaller practices challenge training programs. Small practices could do less training in the future because of financial limitations as well as human error.
Using third-party vendors, such as billing companies, involves added risk for the small health practice. Third-party vendors must be HIPAA-compliant to ensure that data are breach-proof. Such comprehensive vetting and monitoring might be quite a challenge for small practices.
Handling Patient Access to Their Health Information
HIPAA grants patients the right to access their health records. In turn, small practices should have procedures in place to receive requests safely and promptly to avoid patient dissatisfaction or potential violations.
Be Ready for Audits and Investigations
Occasionally, audits for HIPAA compliance will happen within the business. Small practices should always expect the worst and show that they comply with the legislation at all times. This norm of expectation requires careful documentation. and following protocols, which can be too burdensome for an under-resourced practice.
Keeping Pace with Tech Changes
Even though the quick progress of advances in technology has opportunities, it also comes with great challenges. New systems such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs) need to be implemented and validated for compliance with HIPAA. Many small practices cannot manage this rapid pace of change and keep them in compliance.
Caring for Patients and Other Administrative Services
Patients are the primary concern of any health practice. But even in the most patient-centered practices, the need for time-consuming administrative tasks associated with HIPAA compliance must be integrated into that patient’s quality of care. Small practices frequently find themselves in the position of having to balance these worlds.
These issues must be fixed if small health practices are to improve the keeping of patients’ information and trust. Corporate partners such as Quelin Billing also assist in relieving some of these burdens, particularly for long-term care facilities. Quelin Billing offers outstanding services involving medical coding, billing, accounts receivable management, credentialing, and much more; this is aimed at streamlining administrative processes and improving compliance efforts.
By planning just in time what the problems of HIPAA compliance are, small health practices can deliver high-quality patient care while protecting themselves.
Have Any Question?
Reach out to Quelin Billing for expert assistance in medical billing, coding, and practice management, tailored to your healthcare needs.
- 210-245-7698
- [email protected]
