By Greg Garner

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was introduced for the purpose of protecting an individual with respect to health care insurance whether it was ensuring a continual cover or protecting the personal health information. The covered entities who handle such individuals and their information have to follow the HIPAA laws and face penalties in case of non-compliance.

Today’s HIPAA laws are very vast and complex with a number of amendments being made to make it more effective over time, and thus taking a HIPAA certificate course has become almost irreplaceable for all employees who are in any way concerned with patients and their data. And even though no specific certificate is required by HIPAA most of the employers will want their employees to secure one so that they can perform their duties without violating HIPAA rules.

Following are the 5 groups that must get a HIPAA certificate.

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Health Care Providers: Any entity that provides treatment to a patient must get a certificate due to their proximity to the patient and personal information. Such organizations include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, medical schools, and individuals like doctors, nurses, dentists, physical therapists and radiologists. Courses will cover an HIPAA overview, privacy and security rules, and different safeguards, in varying details depending on the particular course.

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Mental Health: Organizations and employees involved in mental treatment of patients must also get such a certificate because they too come in direct contact with patients just like other medical providers specializing in physical health. Psychiatrists, psychologist, mental health programs, behavioral services and even certain social services come under this category. Besides specialization in their respective fields such entities can complete a HIPAA certification course similar to health care providers.

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Business Associates: Business associates are organizations that provide covered entities like health care and insurance providers with certain products and services. These include software companies, medical billing, document storage, consultants, medical couriers, collection agencies, marketing, cleaning services and medical equipment manufacturers. Even though these organizations do not fall under covered entities, a substantial amount of a patient’s personal information may be disclosed to them by the covered entities, and thus it is important that such organizations know the importance of HIPAA laws.

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Insurance Agents: A HIPAA certificate is also recommended for health insurance companies who provide administration and brokerage services. Insurance agents and brokers, third party administrators and benefit management services are common examples. Understanding all the HIPAA Privacy laws and the penalties for non-compliance will help such agents and organization to handle such data with maximum discretion.

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Group Health Plan: An organization that sponsors and manages group health plan for their employees including human resource personnel come under this group. HIPAA provides special support to enroll for such a plan and thus a certificate becomes essential for following the related laws.

There are a number of HIPAA certificate courses available both online and in-class. You can choose a particular course and level according to your particular requirement, but always select courses which are offered by reputed bodies for better learning.

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Source:

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