This week on the HIPAA Insider Show, Adam and Gil take a deep dive into HIPAA Compliance as a Service (HCaaS) through three distinct frames: administrative policy support, technical security solutions, and consulting services. With real-world examples highlighting the strengths of HCaaS providers like Compliancy Group, HIPAA Vault, and specialized consultants, this episode explores how HCaaS helps organizations of all sizes achieve seamless compliance. Whether you’re a healthcare provider, a tech company, or a growing startup, you’ll learn how HCaaS can fit your unique needs.
Transcript
Adam Zeineddine
Hello and welcome to the HIPAA Insider Show. I’m Adam, joined as always by the knowledgeable Gil Vidal. Smile for the camera, Gil.
Gil Vidals
Yeah, thanks, Adam.
Adam Zeineddine
Today we’re looking. Good to see you. Today we’re looking at HIPAA compliance as a service. Hcas, not to be confused with human capital as a service, HIPAA compliance as a service through. We’re going to be looking at it through three different lenses. We’ll explore how administrative policy support, technical security and specialized consulting services each play an important role in achieving compliance for businesses. Plus we’ll share some real world examples to help you see how this works in action.
Gil Vidals
Yeah, absolutely. Adam, HCAs, as you call it, HIPAA compliance service is a really good way to demystify HIPAA compliance, especially for organizations that have multiple priorities. So we’re going to break down in three frameworks and we’ll give our listeners a clear understanding of how HCAs can address their specific challenges.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah, definitely. So these three frames are designed to fit into the use cases for any company, whether it’s a healthcare company directly or a healthcare software company that’s looking for help with HIPAA compliance. So frame one, let’s start with the administrative policy support. For many organizations, policies and documentation are a pain point. Gil, how does HCAAS step in to help here?
Gil Vidals
Yeah, so HIPAA compliance as a service, Adam, you gotta think about how to efficiently produce these policies and procedures. Some people know them as standard operating procedures, but this is intense because, yeah, let’s say you find some website that can create a pile of paper for you, all these policies and you just stick it in your filing cabinet. That’s not really the goal. You need to have policies that you’re actually adhering to.
Gil Vidals
So we think that for HCAs, the compliancy group, which is one of our partners, you can work with them and they have a platform where not only do they provide the paper, you know, the policies that you have to sign, but they also have a way of guiding you through it to make sure you’re adhering to the training and to the, all the different features that you need and an activity that goes around these policies. So they’re going to have a way of providing support, a coach that you can meet with, etc. So we think Compliancy Group would be a great way to handle that.
Adam Zeineddine
Okay, so that’s the administrative policy part of HIPAA compliance as a service that we covered there. Next up is technical security, which is a big concern for organizations using cloud platforms which is most organizations nowadays and digital tools. How does hcas address this?
Gil Vidals
Well, this is an example that we can talk about. A company we work for is HIPAA Vault. We excel. HIPAA Vault excels at the technical side. So that means it’s essentially the environment where your healthcare application is going to reside. So HIPAA Vault will ensure that the infrastructure is created properly and adhering to all the compliance regulations. And that’s a great way to handle the technical side. So your developers are mired in all of those technical aspects.
Adam Zeineddine
Have you got a specific example there? Because we obviously work with a range of different healthcare customers. Give us an example of a typical client that we help technically for HCAs.
Gil Vidals
Sure, I can do that. One example would be a mid sized telehealth company that needed the secure and compliant hosting environment for their healthcare platform. That platform stored and transmitted sensitive patient data. Hipovolt helped them by providing the cloud hosting solution that included the encrypted data storage, the multi factor authentication24.7 monitoring and for example, when a cyber attack occurred, Hippable team detected and mitigated
that threat before it could impact their patient data. So the client could focus on expanding their telehealth offerings knowing that their compliance, the technical aspects were in good hands.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah, so these are almost like the, this aspect and this frame is almost like who are you going to war with? Like who have you got in the field of battle to help against the bad actors that are actually in real time trying to exfiltrate the data? Right?
Gil Vidals
Yeah, that’s right.
Adam Zeineddine
Okay, so we covered the administrative policy hcas, we covered the technical security side. Frame three I think is increasingly becoming more important and that is specialized consulting services. What types of consulting might be included in this framework?
Gil Vidals
Well, that’s something that you and I have been talking about. Now that the regulators are tightening up, the new regulations are calling for penetration testing. And we did another podcast where we talk about that. But penetration testing is different than just scanning an application. So if you just scan an application, you don’t need a human being for that. You could use scanning software. You just scan and then you get a list of vulnerabilities and you go about fixing those, mitigating those. But for penetration testing you need a real life human being. That’s what a penetration test is. It’s a human being who is an expert trying to break into the site. They see the vulnerabilities and they say, okay, let me see if I can actually execute and exploit the site. Hipovol has partners that can help you with this in the penetration testing?
Gil Vidals
We can provide that as well.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah. Can you give us a, an example of, you know, what that would look like just maybe a little bit more about the penetration test? Sure. In the healthcare field?
Gil Vidals
Sure. So again, a mid sized healthcare provider came to us and they needed to have this penetration testing. So the testers, the experts, simulated a cyber attack on their systems and uncovered the vulnerabilities in the web application and in their network defenses. And then based on their findings, the organization implemented stronger access controls, they improved the encryption and patching critical vulnerability. So this is not only brought them into compliance, but also the new requirements that are coming along as well. And this is all very helpful to prevent any future breaches.
Adam Zeineddine
Okay, so there’s the three frames that we’ve talked about there and I think those examples really show how hcas adapts to meet different needs. What’s your takeaway, Gil, on these three frames and how they can work together?
Gil Vidals
Yes, I think they’re most effective when these frameworks, administrative, technical and consulting are integrated.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah.
Gil Vidals
So a dental office might start with administrative support, you know, getting their policies together and their training for their staff. A telehealth company might prioritize the technical security because maybe they already have the policies and procedures, but they need stronger defense. And a startup might lean on the consulting side, but each organization benefits from a comprehensive approach. Together these services create a safety net that ensures compliance without burdening the internal team.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah, yeah, I think we’ve said this quite a lot, but it’s not a one size fits all either. When it comes to HCAAs, it’s important to remain flexible and know what level of service you need in each frame. If you’re looking for help with HIPAA
compliance, start by identifying your biggest pain points and exploring HCAs. Providers like HIPAA, Vault Compliancy Group and other specialized consultants.
Gil Vidals
Yeah, absolutely. And feel free to reach out to Adam and myself. We can get on a call and a meeting with you. We know this industry well, so even if we can’t help you directly, we can always point you in the right direction and that could save you a lot of time and a lot of frustration.
Adam Zeineddine
Yeah. Head over to hippovault.com for more information. Thanks for tuning in today and don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review. We’ve just recently reached over 200 subscribers, so thank you for subscribing and if you haven’t already, please go ahead and do so. And until next time, stay secure and stay compliant.