If you’ve been in the home care or healthcare field for any length of time, you’re undoubtably familiar with HIPAA – the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. HIPAA set national standards for how to protect patients and their private health information.
As employers in the home care industry, most understand that HIPAA covers information that would be collected in a client file – from date of birth to information about health conditions.
HIPAA is also designed to cover marketing efforts. The HIPAA Privacy Rule provides patients with control over how their protected health information (PHI) is used and disclosed for marketing purposes. Because of this, it’s important that all home care marketing efforts comply with HIPAA standards to ensure that no PHI is being disclosed, putting your agency at risk for a potential violation.
