How We Ensure HIPAA Compliance with Our Medical Transcription Service
The medical industry greatly benefits from specialized professional transcription services, as they save time and money in a high-pressure profession where staff often work overtime due to the demanding nature of their jobs.
By outsourcing the task of transcribing everyday duties to a reliable transcription service, healthcare practices can experience numerous advantages. Texts such as patient discharge summaries, medical histories, and research interviews can be handed over to the service, freeing up valuable staff time. This can lead to immediate improvements in the workplace, including lower staff turnover and burnout rates, increased productivity, and enhanced job satisfaction.
However, when selecting a medical transcription service, it is crucial to ensure that it adheres to the highest level of confidentiality. At Sunrise Transcription, we prioritize information security and implement strict measures to guarantee compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
Infrastructure and Network Security Our servers are located within secure Microsoft Azure data centers that employ advanced techniques to prevent physical and online intrusion. These facilities are ISO certified, undergo constant monitoring, and receive regular security updates. Working with these world-renowned data centers ensures the utmost reliability and uptime for our services.
Micro-Tasking and Confidentiality To further ensure confidentiality, we have developed a custom micro-tasking algorithm that breaks down audio or video files into snippets and assigns them randomly to our transcribers. This approach ensures that no transcriber has access to the entire job or can identify the client.
Quality-Assurance Security Measures All content uploaded to and exchanged through our work delivery platform is encrypted for additional security. We use the same encryption algorithms employed in safeguarding financial data during online banking transactions. Our specialized platform provides transcribers with advanced transcription and translation tools without allowing any downloading or offline storage of data. Before being assigned any jobs, our transcribers must pass tests for quality and efficiency.
Geo-Location and Fencing We understand that some clients have strict requirements for keeping their confidential information within specific countries' borders, particularly in the UK, Canada, or Australia. To accommodate these needs, we utilize geo-location to limit content processing to users within a pre-specified geographical location. Geo-fencing further filters job assignments to transcribers with the required technical expertise.
Advanced Enterprise Confidentiality When handling extra sensitive information, we can provide background checks for all employees assigned to the project and share their resumes with the client. This process requires advance planning to ensure the completion of individual security checks before commencing work. If a non-disclosure agreement or other legal contract is necessary, our transcribers are familiar with the process and can comply accordingly.
In-House Processing Options We recognize that certain information may be too sensitive to share with external employees, even after they have passed our security checks. In such cases, our customers have the option to exclusively process their own content in-house. Their staff will have access to all the tools available through our secure online platform, including partial support using advanced speech recognition algorithms.
HIPAA Compliance Our fully trained medical transcriptionists are subject to the business associate requirements outlined in HIPAA's privacy legislation. This means that we are also bound by these requirements since our transcribers handle Personal Health Information (PHI) on behalf of healthcare providers. They are strictly prohibited from using or sharing PHI in any manner that could violate the privacy rule. These security standards apply to digitally stored or transmitted information. When transcribers process PHI, they must adhere to chain-of-trust agreements to maintain the integrity and confidentiality of the information during transmission.
With these seven security measures in place, Sunrise Transcription ensures the utmost care and confidentiality in handling your information.
