Digital Signature HIPAA Business Associate Agreement Made Easy

Electronic signature hipaa business associate agreement

- Between juggling schedules, providing care, and marketing, a lot goes into managing a private practice. Thankfully, a variety of organizations and tools help with these demands. But using them requires giving access to protected health information. So how do you use these resources while ensuring compliance and privacy? Today we're going to cover business associate agreements or BAAs for short. What is a business associate agreement exactly? Well to understand BAAs, you must first understand HIPAA. HIPAA applies to covered entities which include health plans, clearinghouses, and healthcare providers who conduct electronic healthcare transactions. This means that the privacy and security provisions that govern your protected health information may not apply directly to the resources you use to help manage different aspects of your practice. That's why you need the help of business associates, which are vendors, partners, or other entities that provide services to or perform functions on behalf of a covered entity. Because business associates aren't governed by HIPAA like covered entities are, HIPAA requires that covered entities have a BAA with each business associate. A BAA is a written contract typically provided by vendors which defines how the business associate will use and disclose protected health information, implement safeguards consistent with the security rule to protect this information, notify the covered entity in the event of a breach, and ensure that all subcontractors of the business associate comply with similar rules. Something you need to make sure of, is that your BAA policies are in line with the Notice of Privacy Policies that you provide your clients. This is referred to as a HIPAA agreement in TherapyNotes. Also, get an attorney to review the BAA before signing it, since these contracts can vary in content between business associates. Now let's discuss if you actually need business associate agreements. If you're a covered entity, BAAs are necessary if you elect to use an EHR like TherapyNotes or are in a situation where someone who is not a member of your practice has access to your PHI. However, HIPAA does make some exceptions. For example, you don't need a BAA with a bank to cash a check from your client, or with the post office to mail an invoice. But for most activities, you're better served having BAAs in place. If you're not a covered entity though, you're not required to have BAAs, since you're not governed by HIPAA. But you may still want to have written contracts with vendors to help ensure they're held accountable for breaches of client data. If you're a TherapyNotes user, you'll be glad to know that TherapyNotes has developed a BAA to help you adhere to these guidelines. This BAA must be signed and uploaded into TherapyNotes in order for your practice to remain HIPAA compliant. For more information, visit our help center and read the articles titled, Business Associate Agreement. That concludes this video, we hope you found it helpful. To keep up with our latest content and videos, subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel. Thanks for watching!