Why Patient Privacy Is So Important In A Competitive World.
April 17, 2019 by Staff
Filed under Health, Money/Business, Tech/Internet, Weekly Columns
(Akiit.com) It’s easy to forget sometimes that healthcare is still an industry. Nothing is for free and sooner or later in life, you’ll learn that savings lives does cost money. So when we as citizens do pay for our care, the least we can expect is to be respected. Those that give us care are intimately involved within our lives inadvertently. But this does not give anyone the right to stamp on your personal privacy. You’re not someone who is merely the next sale for a business, your health concerns are not subject to some kind of marketing campaign. This is why patient privacy is an extremely hot topic in today’s world. Not to mention with the advent of companies like Facebook who have been caught selling off user data to various companies. If this kind of malpractice was to be found in the healthcare industry, people would rightfully be up in arms. So here’s how your business can improve privacy for patients.
Give them a welcome
Patients that arrive to any clinic or practice should be given a warm welcome. If their insurance has recommended you, that means that some kind of flowing trust is going on. This should be exerted onto the patient as well because informing them of who you are and how you operate goes a long way to retaining their business. Patients should be given a brochure of the services you offer and the kind of care they can expect.
But don’t forget to explain your privacy policy. Right from the beginning you should make it clear that you will not be selling their health condition data to a third party such as pharmaceutical companies. That side of the business is something you should be dealing with, by giving patients options. This kind of talk should always happen between patient and doctor, and not some telemarketer calling their home.
The one thing to avoid
Of all the mishaps that could of should not ever happen, is the loss of patient data. Even if you are HIPAA compliant, some software is not as strong against cyber attacks. Maybe in other kinds of businesses and industries can have customer data hacked and it wouldn’t be the complete end of that business. However in the healthcare field it’s absolutely detrimental to ever being trusted again. So use a service like you find on http://www.nahs.co which specifically works to protect medical records of patients. You will still be meeting all the necessary HIPAA compliances but your records won’t be open to malware and viruses as other software is. Any security issues and the company will monitor and act when necessary to keep your business going. This is something you should be telling worried patients to reassure them that their most sensitive information is under lock and key.
Patients give you their most embarrassing and painful secrets about their health. As professionals in the healthcare industry, you should return the favor by reassuring them that you take their privacy incredibly seriously and use some of the best software to make sure nothing is exposed to cyber criminals.
Staff Writer; Larry Wall