The Pitfalls of Free HIPAA Training: Is It Enough For Compliance?

For healthcare organizations, staying HIPAA-compliant is non-negotiable. While free HIPAA training resources can be helpful, they may lack the depth required to meet all regulatory standards. So, is free training sufficient, or should you consider a more robust approach to compliance?

In this blog, we’ll weigh the pros and cons of free HIPAA training, helping you make an informed decision on how best to safeguard sensitive patient information.

What Is HIPAA?

HIPAA is an acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It's a federal law that regulates the protection and privacy of individuals' health information in the U.S., originally passed in 1996.

In order to protect patient security, privacy, and confidentiality, HIPAA establishes guidelines for the use and disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). These restrictions apply to both certain covered entities and their business associations.

How Can You Be HIPAA-Compliant?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or DHHS) sets HIPAA requirements. Compliance is enforced by the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR). HIPAA compliance is required for all healthcare organizations – including providers (like hospitals and private practices), payers (like insurance companies), and any business associates of healthcare organizations are also subject to HIPAA when they handle PHI.

These organizations must adhere to several different types of rules, including the Privacy Rules, Security Rules, and the Breach Notification Rules. The purpose of the HIPAA regulations is to protect PHI while allowing the necessary information sharing between healthcare organizations.

If you fail to follow HIPAA regulations, your organization can incur significant fines and penalties. That's why it's so important that all PHI is handled with appropriate security and discretion.

Who Is Subject to HIPAA Compliance?

Organizations subject to HIPAA are known as covered entities. A covered entity is any organization that handles or uses PHI.

There are several different types of covered entities, and compliance looks a little different for each category. However, all covered entities are required to implement administrative, physical, and technical security measures that protect patient PHI.

• Healthcare Providers - Organizations that provide medical services are covered entities known as healthcare providers. Examples of healthcare providers include hospitals, outpatient clinics, physicians' offices, and other facilities that provide care.
• Health Plans - Under HIPAA, organizations that oversee and pay for medical services are considered covered entities, or "health plans." Two examples are insurance companies and reimbursement schemes.
• Healthcare Clearinghouses - Organizations that process and route healthcare information, including claims data and PHI, are covered entities known as healthcare clearinghouses.
• Business Associates - HIPAA applies to Business Associates (BAs) as they handle PHI and conduct certain business services including data analysis, claims processing, and billing, among other things.

HIPAA privacy, security, and EHR rules apply to covered entities like healthcare providers, health plans, and clearinghouses, while business associates have different requirements. BAs can avoid HIPAA regulations by forming Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) with covered entities, outlining the responsibilities each party will assume when handling PHI.

Why Is HIPAA Training Important?

The government takes HIPAA compliance as seriously as you should, but laws aside, there is still the looming danger of legal action taken against violators. HIPAA laws and regulations are not only strict and complicated, they're also constantly evolving and expanding. There's a lot to remember, so even between regulatory updates, regular refreshers can be crucial to consistent compliance.

For an organization to remain HIPAA compliant, it's important for individual employees to be well-versed in current requirements and best practices. Regular and up-to-date training is vital and provides protection for the employer or business from the penalties that can quickly grow out of hand.

When you consider all that can go wrong in relation to HIPAA, it becomes essential for covered entities and business associates to provide ongoing and accurate training to their workforce.

What Are the Pitfalls of Free HIPAA Training?

While we understand that free training is a cost-effective way to train employees, the saying "you get what you pay for" is very applicable.

Free HIPAA training is of lower quality and is only provided for broad strokes. That's a problem because, in HIPAA compliance, the devil is in the details. Free HIPAA education and awareness training might not be enough to stop employee violations. The main goal of training should be to teach staff members how to prevent actions that endanger the patients and the company.

Employers can provide general security and awareness training to follow HIPAA guidelines. The trouble is that these may not be specific or relevant to each employee's role. Some HIPAA compliance topics are not covered in free training despite being essential to healthcare professionals.

Good HIPAA training will leverage adult learning principles to ensure that training is effective. It will provide practical examples of HIPAA compliance, including role-specific information. For effective compliance, HIPAA courses need to be detailed to cover the complexity and nuance of the law.

Free online HIPAA training may provide a background in the law and a primer in the terminology, but otherwise, it will be light on the details. Free HIPAA certifications also tend to be generic and one-size-fits-all in nature.

These drawbacks can impede care coordination and the sharing of vital patient data. Just a few mistakes can lead to communication delays, conflict with patient safety concerns, and generate administrative costs and resources that could otherwise be used for patient care.

What Are the Advantages of Professional HIPAA Training?

High-quality, professional HIPAA training will cost money. However, it will be a bargain compared to fines for non-compliance and the loss of confidence in your organization that will follow a security breach.

Paid HIPAA training will provide multiple levels of enhanced value over the free stuff, including:

• Comprehensive Regulatory Knowledge - Professional HIPAA training will cover everything you need to know for compliance, including the nuances of the law and best practices for protecting PHI.
• Up-to-Date Information - Free HIPAA training is often outdated, but compliance is constantly evolving due to new legislation, regulations, litigation, and technology. Professionally maintained HIPAA training ensures comprehensive and current information.
• Excellent Instructional Design - Professional HIPAA training is designed by professionals. They use the best instructional design practices to ensure that information is easy to digest, accurate, and easy to remember.
• Role Specific - Compliance with HIPAA varies for different entities, and job responsibilities vary. Role-specific HIPAA training can improve compliance by minimizing noise and making courses as applicable as possible, especially for nurses and IT professionals.

Is HIPAA Training Available Online? 

Yes! At 360training, we've been providing online regulatory compliance training for over 20 years. Our online courses are effective, self-paced, and convenient.

Our HIPAA training is crafted to encourage compliance and is targeted to your business. It's comprehensive, up-to-date, and designed to help you succeed. We also offer job-specific training for Business Associates, Healthcare Workers, Medical Office Staff, and Dental Offices. Enroll today!