HIPAA Compliance & Risk Assessment in Chicago

What is HIPAA Risk Assessment and Compliance for Chicago Organizations?

HIPAA security risk assessments help your organization assess security priorities for budget and how you can demonstrate controls over Protected Health Information (PHI) and Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) are “reasonable and appropriate,” which is crucial for HIPAA compliance. Our HIPAA compliance services, guides you through risk assessments so you can identify — in a clear, repeatable manner — what parts of the organization you must prioritize to address both compliance and security.

HALOCK’s HIPAA risk assessment methodology conforms to ISO 27005 and NIST 800-30, and ensures that the HIPAA requirements for risk assessments are fully met and achieve the following benefits:

• Information security investments are measurably “reasonable and appropriate” as HIPAA and Meaningful Use require.
• Information, systems, processes, people and facilities that can create risk are identified and assessed to ensure HIPAA compliance.
• Risks are prioritized, in part, by the impact that a threat has on the organization and its responsibilities.
• Information risks are considered in terms of the business mission as well as the organization’s responsibilities to its customers, providing a unified view of risk that aligns with HALOCK’s Purpose Driven Security® approach.

HALOCK’s Chicago-area HIPAA Compliance & Risk Assessment service helps covered entities (CE) and business associates (BA) identify threats to ePHI, assess their safeguards and build a pragmatic risk-management plan tailored for Illinois healthcare organizations.

In addition to our HIPAA assessment services, HALOCK offers a full suite of HIPAA security risk treatment programs and HIPAA risk management plans to help you achieve and maintain HIPAA compliance.

What is a HIPAA Risk Treatment?

HIPAA security risk assessments are performed to alert management about what could go wrong with PHI and Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Those risks remain a liability unless “reasonable and appropriate” security controls are established to protect that information and keep those controls effective.

Risk treatment is the process for implementing the appropriate information security controls. Using formalized risk management processes, HALOCK helps you determine the appropriate level of risk treatment in a manner that is consistent with the HIPAA security risk assessment and analysis guidance from DHHS, CMS and NIST. In addition, HALOCK’s security engineers work closely with your staff to assist in implementing the appropriate technical solutions to help you achieve your compliance goals.

What is HIPAA Risk Management?

HIPAA compliance is not a point-in-time achievement, but rather a duty of care process that operates over time. To achieve ongoing due care, HIPAA risk management is applied. This involves monitoring and correcting security controls so they remain effective at reducing risk.

HALOCK acts as your HIPAA consultant to help establish key processes for monitoring and addressing risks to protected health information (PHI) and electronic medical records (EMR). Our HIPAA risk assessment and management plan ensures that risk owners are accomplishing their assigned tasks; it also provides easily maintained metrics for demonstrating that security and compliance investments are “reasonable and appropriate.” Through Duty of Care Risk Assessment (DoCRA), we help you establish reasonable safeguards based on your organization’s mission, objective and obligations.

Based on ISO 27001 and NIST 800-30, HALOCK’s compliance consulting and risk management methodologies are practical and scalable — and easily applied in most organizations regardless of size or complexity.

HALOCK is headquartered in Schaumburg, IL, in the Chicago area and advises clients on risk management and reasonable security programs throughout the US.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is HIPAA compliance?

This refers to the process for following the procedures required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA is the law that established the current standards for protecting patients’ sensitive health-related data. The goal is to ensure healthcare companies do everything possible to secure and protect this information to prevent data breaches.

What is a HIPAA-covered entity?

Entities that are required to adhere to the HIPAA standards include healthcare providers, health plan providers, and healthcare clearinghouses. All of these entities are entrusted with patients’ personal information including Social Security numbers (SSNs), bank account details, and medical histories. Any enterprise that falls into these categories can benefit from HIPAA compliance solutions.

What are HIPAA violations?

There are a number of ways in which a HIPAA-covered entity can fail to comply with regulations. These can include transmitting patient data without sufficient encryption, disclosing patient information to unauthorized entities or falling victim to cyberattacks that expose the data. The scope of potential violations and the severity of the penalties involved makes it all the more important that businesses enlist the help of HALOCK as their HIPAA consultant.

Are there any new HIPAA requirements we should be aware of?

If your organization is responsible for HIPAA compliance, you may have another incentive to begin regular pen testing. That is because on December 24, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to modify HIPAA. Learn more details in this HIPAA article.

Where can I find a guide to HIPAA Acronyms?

Read a glossary of HIPAA and healthcare acronyms.

What are the top threats facing the healthcare industry?

Top Cyber Threats in Healthcare

Review Your HIPAA Risk and Security Profile.