As a healthcare provider, you are responsible for the lives of your patients. To provide the best care possible, medical professionals are required to consult patient medical records. However, when patient files become obsolete, destroying health information requires a lot more care and attention than simply relying on a shredder. Instead, physicians must comply with strict disposal standards as outlined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If you are concerned about fulfilling all your legal requirements, consider working with a professional NAID AAA Certified shredding company to protect your patients who are relying on your services and medical industry expertise.
A Guideline for Shredding Medical Records
Physicians and healthcare administrators are required to store patient health records in a safe and secure place. After the legal retention period for inactive files has expired, these records must be destroyed in a way that still retains patient confidentiality. Here is a guideline for shredding medical records in accordance with HIPAA guidelines:
- Employee Training: Your facility must maintain a uniform shredding policy. All employees should be made aware of the step-by-step destruction process and what actions to perform each time patient medical records need to be destroyed.
- Hard Copy and Digital Destruction: According to HIPAA regulations, documents cannot be digitized in-house. If documents are converted to electronic copies, both the original file and digital versions must be destroyed.
- Certified Shredding Company: If you work with a third-party contractor, be sure that they are NAID AAA certified and can provide you with a Certificate of Destruction after the shredding process. Official documentation that outlines the method of destruction, when it took place, and why the files were destroyed, is important to protect both the contractor and your medical facility.
Choose a trusted NAID AAA Certified company to address your paper and digital media shredding needs.
Call TITAN Mobile Shredding and speak to our data destruction professionals at (866) 848-2699 today or contact us online to request your free quote.
