If you work in the healthcare industry, you probably have heard the term HIPAA mentioned a solid amount of times. So it’s not surprising that when it comes to implementing a CRM system for your healthcare business, it’ll need to be HIPAA compliant.
But what exactly constitutes as HIPAA -compliant, why is it so crucial, and how can you find a simple customer relationship management (CRM) platform that is HIPAA -compliant? These are questions we’re sure you’re wondering. But we know healthcare providers are incredibly busy and stretched for time. So, in this article, we’ve collated all the information you need about HIPAA -compliant CRMs into one resource.
What is HIPAA?
HIPAA, also known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, protects people’s sensitive healthcare information. Put simply, HIPAA regulations prevent personal healthcare information from being disclosed without the patient’s knowledge or consent.
As a result, medical organizations must ensure all patient records are stored in HIPAA-compliant software.
Why is HIPAA compliance important?
In many healthcare centers, HIPAA compliance goes without saying, but let’s take a step back to look into why.
1. It’s a legal requirement
This is undoubtedly the most obvious reason why HIPAA compliance is important. Ultimately, any healthcare provider offering treatment, payment, and operations is subject to HIPAA compliance rules.
Put simply, it’s illegal not to comply. If you’re not using HIPAA-compliant software, you’re not managing your patient data correctly. Failing to comply not only violates the law but can also be harmful to the patient whose information has been mishandled.
If you violate the act, you can expect a hefty fine along with having to produce a plan of action to bring your policies up to HIPAA standards. Better to avoid that drama and ensure that your practice is using HIPAA-compliant software from the onset, don’t you think?
2. It improves the patient experience
When it comes to private healthcare, your patients have a lot of options to choose from. As a result, medical practices need to make sure they’re providing patients with an excellent level of service: and this means their patients need to feel assured that their information is confidential. Chances are that if they don’t get that level of service from you, they’re going to find it somewhere else.
And that’s where a HIPAA-compliant CRM is important.
Using a modern, user-intuitive CRM solution — one that aligns with HIPAA regulations — medical professionals can provide customers with a streamlined and efficient service to improve the patient experience.
Is monday.com HIPAA compliant?
In short, yes — monday.com is HIPAA compliant.
But only on our Enterprise plan. Our Enterprise plan includes all the features of our Pro plan, as well as additional security functions that make it HIPAA compliant. Let’s take a look at some of these features in more detail.
1. Panic button
With our Enterprise plan, users have access to our panic button feature. Activating the panic button allows you to momentarily block your account if your team’s login credentials are compromised. You can also control the session timeout of users in your account. This means you can choose when your account automatically logs someone out of the system if it’s been idle.
2. Single sign-on
Single sign-on (SSO) allows users to log in once and use those same credentials to log into other service providers. It works by transferring the user’s identity from one place — the identity provider of your choice — to another (monday.com).
So why is this more secure than having separate logins? Well, SSO is helpful for 2 main reasons:
- It allows users to memorize one password instead of dozens. This means they can create an incredibly unique and strong password that’s hard to crack without memorizing multiple logins.
- It reduces the number of attack points for hackers.
Head over to our support page for more information on single sign-on with monday.com.
3. IP restrictions
Admins of monday.com’s Enterprise plan can choose specific IP addresses to join their accounts. This means healthcare companies can choose the exact locations of the devices that can access the CRM platform.
For example, you might set the IP restriction to only allow access to devices in your office. If any members of your team work remotely, you can add their personal home IP addresses, too. Controlling IP access reduces the risk of an unauthorized person using your software. It also allows you to remove access from certain devices if you need to.
What is a Business Associate Agreement (BAA)?
The BAA is a contractual assurance from a business associate to a covered entity stating that they follow HIPAA’s requirements. It’s a HIPAA requirement that this agreement is in place before transferring PHI from the covered entity to the business associate. For your monday.com account to be HIPAA compliant, you must first sign on to the BAA and configure your account. With monday.com, it’s quick and easy to sign a BAA electronically.
Use monday.com as your next HIPAA compliant CRM software solution
The monday sales CRM provides healthcare professionals with the visibility they need to provide an excellent level of care while delivering personalized care to each patient. You can easily tailor the CRM software to work for you, without any development help.
Our software is customization-centric by design. We want you to create a workflow that suits your requirements. That’s why we have hundreds of customizations that allow you to do exactly that.
Not to mention, all of your sensitive healthcare data is safe and secure in your monday.com account. So let’s take a look at some of the specific features in more detail so you can see for yourself why monday.com is the perfect healthcare CRM software.
1. Keep track of patient information
With monday.com, you can safely keep track of your patient’s contact details, medical records, and referrals all in one place. But don’t just take our word for it.
Take a look at this success story from the Instituto Português da Face, a medical clinic based in Portugal. Dr. David Serrano Faustino Ângelo, a Lisbon-based doctor, wanted a shared database to streamline his workflow and improve his ability to help patients. This was especially important because he would often treat patients in different locations.
But with monday.com, David could track patient surgeries, monitor the effectiveness of those surgeries, and manage his weekly schedule and logistics.
“The biggest benefit I get from monday.com is organization and communication in real-time. I’m able to attach pictures of surgical plannings and coordinate the elements I need for each surgery. I don’t know any other surgeons who work in this way, but I thought monday.com could work as a valuable tool to organize my surgical team’s work… and I was right!”
Dr. David Serrano Faustino Ângelo, Instituto Português da Face
Side note: you don’t need to understand Portuguese to get the gist of how David uses monday.com to visually manage all his work.
2. Communicate with healthcare providers and patients
Communication is a vital element of healthcare. Whether that’s communicating with your team, relaying information to patients, or trying to increase patient engagement. With monday.com, healthcare professionals can streamline their communication process. You can add comments to tasks, provide colleagues with feedback, and even share files with patients if you need to.
3. Integrate existing platforms
If you’re already using external platforms to manage your workflow, you’re in luck. monday.com integrates with a variety of third-party apps, tools, and platforms. These integrations allow you to seamlessly connect monday.com to external platforms, creating the perfect workflow solution for your business.
And it couldn’t be easier to integrate, either. Simply click on the integration icon located on your project, choose which platform you’d like to integrate, and we’ll take care of the rest.
4. Automate your processes
We know that healthcare professionals don’t have much time to spare during their working hours. A great way to lighten the load and save time on repetitive tasks is by using automation. At monday.com, you can automate various stages of your workflow to improve efficiency and keep things moving as quickly as possible. We have a selection of pre-made automations for you to choose from, but if none of these fit the bill, you can build your own too.
5. Keep your patient data safe and secure
The privacy and security of your health information is one of our top priorities.
That’s why our software has various safety features, so you know that all of your patient data remains secure in the platform.
As we’ve already mentioned, the security features in our Enterprise plan provide users with the features they need to be HIPAA compliant.
Ranging from IP restrictions to our panic button, we ensure that your patients’ data is secure in our software.
monday.com: the HIPAA-compliant CRM software created with healthcare in mind
By now, you should have a pretty good understanding of the importance of using a HIPAA compliant healthcare CRM system. If you’re still unsure as to which platform is right for you, why not give monday.com a go?
You need to sign up for our Enterprise plan to be HIPAA compliant, but you can kick off with the Individual plan to see if our platform is the right fit.
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