HIPAA Work From Home Requirements

It’s predicted that by 2025 over 36 million Americans will be working remotely.

Given what we all experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, that statistic might not be that shocking to you. In fact, you’re probably thinking that that statistic makes a lot of sense, maybe you’re even reading this blog post while you’re working from home.

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Yet, I’d wager to bet that if you had read the same statistical conclusion during your pre-2020 life it would’ve shocked you.

Although corporate jobs started to accept a more remote style during that time, it wasn’t even close to the rate the future holds. The same source states that the amount of remote workers has increased by over 87%.

If you’re a part of the majority, you’re happy about the general heading of the corporate 9-5 lifestyle. So happy, in fact, that you may be willing to give up other benefits your job offers in place of working remotely. According to CBRE, that’s how 70% of millennials think when it comes to having a flexible working space.

Allowing employees to work from home isn’t easy for every organization though. Certain industries handle sensitive information as a part of their daily operations. This makes it much harder for the companies within them to provide such a perk to their employees.

Healthcare is one of the industries that I’m referring to.

Doctor’s offices, hospitals and even businesses that help medical professionals so that they don’t burn out on the job all work with protected health information (PHI). As a result, they need to follow the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

If you’re familiar with the requirements of that law, your next question I imagine is, “Can companies who need to follow HIPAA even allow remote work?”

The short answer to the question I posed in the beginning of this video is, “yes”.

But, getting to that answer is a little bit more complicated.
First, let’s look at the laws requirements itself.

At the time of writing, HIPAA doesn’t contain a section within it that explicitly states requirements for organizations to follow when it comes to remote work.

What I mean by that is that it doesn’t come flat out and say, “Before you allow your employees to log in from their home office, you must complete the following steps.”

Although that would save healthcare organizations and their business associates a lot of time, that’s not the case.

However, HIPAA’s list of requirements provided as safeguards within the Privacy and Security Rules still apply. In other words, you need to make sure that you can still follow each safeguard that’s given within the law...in a remote setting.

It’s flexible so that organizations are free to decide what processes and policies they need to put in place. Also so that they’re free to choose what vendors to partner with to help them. The pessimist would say that the law isn’t flexible, it’s ambiguous. I’ll admit I’ve written that opinion before.

In other words, HIPAA’s work from home requirements are your responsibility to put in place. Yet you need to be able to stay in compliance with all of the safeguards, otherwise, you’ll end up with a massive fine on your hands.

Since the Department of Health and Human Services keeps HIPAA’s requirements adaptable, what requirements should you impose on those of your employees who are working from home?

Well, before you allow anything you need to make sure that you put a series of policies in place. These policies are your HIPAA work from home requirements. The policies you come up with not only protect your organization in the case of an audit but also guide your remote employees to ensure they’re working in a secure environment.

After all, your employees are your biggest risk from a cybersecurity perspective. That’s a harsh statement, but they’re also one of the most common causes for HIPAA violations whether it be from gossip or unintentionally.

Now that I’ve set the stage, let’s talk about some of the most important requirements to put in place. That way, you may allow your healthcare employees to work from home.

Luckily, data already exists that points out the biggest challenges that organizations ran into when they had no choice but to allow their employees to work from home in 2020. 55.4% of organizations say that their biggest challenges in working from home is training employees on how to most securely and compliantly work at home.

In other words, that’s probably a good place to start.

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