Your Guide to HIPAA Compliance and Password Security
BY IT GLUE | October 26, 2017
If you provide IT services to clients in the healthcare industry, you’ve probably heard a lot about HIPAA compliance. While crucial to protecting sensitive data, many organizations don’t understand its importance.
Your clients put themselves at risk when they share passwords and when they don’t have a secure policy for changing passwords. These are both things that are against HIPAA rules, yet are incredibly common. When it comes to HIPAA, how well are you and your clients following the appropriate regulations?
HIPAA and MSPs
HIPAA isn’t only for the healthcare businesses. For IT providers, when you have access to a covered entities’ data (including healthcare providers, plans, businesses that deal with electronic protected health information, etc.), you are considered a business associate. This relationship means you could be liable if a security breach were to happen, so you must comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to mitigate this risk.
HIPAA and your clients’ password management
In a study of over 100 small medical offices, over 17% of them had sensitive information on post-its – including passwords. Poor password hygiene puts businesses at risk. In 2015, 50% of small and midsized companies reported suffering at least one cyberattack in the last year. Weak passwords are one of the main causes for these breaches.
As stated in the HIPAA security rule section, password management is a part of HIPAA compliance. You and your clients must have “procedures for creating, changing, and safeguarding passwords.” This includes not sharing passwords, writing them down, or displaying them anywhere for others to see.
A password management tool is the solution
HIPAA compliance is important for both you and your clients. Your clients need strong security training that creates a workplace security culture. Creating and managing complex passwords needs to be a priority.
The most robust solution would be to offer your clients a password management tool. In this way, clients can create, manage, and store strong passwords in one simple hub. A password management platform also greatly reduces the need to share passwords because certain permissions can be set to limit access. You and your clients can rest easy knowing you’ve taken necessary precautions against cyber threats, while also complying with HIPAA.
IT Glue can help with password management. Store your clients’ team-based passwords in IT Glue, use the IT Glue mobile app, or download the Chrome Extension to provide greater access to the passwords stored in IT Glue. Or watch our demo to see the full range of features:
IT Glue is the leading documentation platform for MSPs, designed to eliminate waste, improve productivity and hit your SLAs better. We are SOC 2 compliant, meaning that you can count on the security of your information in IT Glue.
