HIPAA Compliant Hosting is a must for healthcare workers. The stakes are simply too high when storing lots of sensitive patient data, to risk the information falling into the wrong hands. Making sure that your hosting is HIPAA compliant goes a long way to ensure that patient data is stored safely and complies with current legislation.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was put in place to keep patient data safe and secure. This means that data transferred or stored must adhere to the strict rules set out in the HIPAA legislation guidelines.
One thing that becomes difficult when looking for HIPAA compliant hosting is finding reliable hosting at a low cost. Other requirements, such as – HIPAA email hosting, HIPAA cloud hosting, HIPAA databases and whether your business requires HIPAA dedicated hosting are also important.
Finally, you’ll need a host that offers FTP security, so that when you are transferring data to and from your host – the data is kept secure.
In this article, we’ll explore everything that you need to know about HIPAA compliant hosting and some hosting providers that offer high-quality solutions.
What are the 3 Components of HIPAA Law?
The HIPAA legislation covers your entire organization. The law also states that employees should be aware of the HIPAA law, so training is advisable for everyone who works in the healthcare sector. The 3 main components of the HIPAA law can be summarised as follows:
1. Policies
2. Record keeping
3. Technology
Your host has a big part to play in all three areas. As they will be providing technology that must comply, holding records that must be stored securely and all parts must adhere to strict policies. Furthermore, you need to think about every single piece of data that is transferred online and whether it adheres to the strict HIPAA legislation. Otherwise, you’ll be at risk of incurring a financial penalty.
The 18 HIPAA Identifiers
HIPAA legislation protects “individually identifiable information” both at rest and in transit, this is known as Protected Health Information (PHI). There are 18 key identifiers that must be protected as follows:. Name
3. Address
4. Dates related to an individual
5. Telephone numbers
6. Fax number
7. Email address
8. Social Security Number
9. Medical record number
10. Health plan beneficiary number
11. Account number
12. Certificate or license number
13. Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers
14. Device identifiers and serial numbers
15. Web URL
16. Internet Protocol (IP) Address
17. Finger or voice print
18. Photographic image
19. Uniquely defining characteristics
As you can see, that’s a lot of information to keep track of!
What is a HIPPA violation?
Before we get into the best hosting providers that offer a HIPAA compliant service, let’s look at what a HIPPA violation is and why it’s important to avoid this.
Normally HIPAA violations incur large financial penalties. The main thing you need to watch out for is that you’ve successfully performed organization-wide risk analysis. Doing this identifies risks to confidentiality, integrity, and availability of protected health information (PHI), It’s also imperative to enter into a HIPAA-compliant business associate agreement (BAA).
What are the HIPAA Compliant Hosting Requirements?
… and who needs to comply with the HIPAA legislation?
The legislation sets standards for electronic healthcare transactions and how patient records are handled. HIPAA covers a wide range of sensitive information. For example appointments, treatment information, healthcare records, and medical health histories.
There are certain precautions that must be made to ensure that people who are storing, controlling, disposing, and providing access to medical records do so in a way that ensures their safety and privacy is kept intact. Businesses that work closely with a healthcare company are also required to adhere to the legislation. As such, hosting providers must be HIPAAcompliantt to work with a Healthcare Organization legally.
What are the Encryption Requirements for HIPAA?
When selecting a HIPAA certified host they must follow strict encryption and decryption guidelines, as follows:
- Encryption and Decryption – 164.312(a)(2)(iv): Implement a method to encrypt and decrypt electronically protected health information.
- Encryption – 164.312(e)(2)(ii): Implement a mechanism to encrypt electronically protected health information whenever deemed appropriate.
These requirements were taken from hipaacentral.com.
As you can see HIPPA hosting complex and a must for anyone working in the healthcare sector. Let’s dive into the best HIPPA Compliant hosts:
Best HIPAA-Compliant Web Hosting
1. LiquidWeb.com (£238 per month)
BEST FOR – Flexible Hosting, Ideal for Large Healthcare companies in the US or Europe
LiquidWeb offers cloud dedicated servers, and cloud-based virtual private servers (VPS). They even offer 2 pre-configured HIPAA-friendly packages that you can select and use straight out of the box. This is a lifesaver if you don’t have the time or resources to configure your server. For some reason, many hosts require you to call them up and discuss your requirements. Great for some people… sure, but not everyone has time for that. I’d expect my HIPAA compliant host to be automated, and for this reason, LiquidWeb comes up top of our list.
Alternatively, you can also work directly with one of Liquid Web’s specialists to create a customized plan. They are particularly great when it comes to managed dedicated server hosting. LiquidWeb offers instant provisioning, so if you choose to go with LiquidWeb, you’ll be up and running in minutes. Bonus!
LiquidWeb has a world-class customer support team that is both knowledgeable and quick to respond. They have a really cool customer support offering name – “24/7 Heroic Support®” where the staff is always available when you need them – via phone, chat, and email.
The company owns five state-of-the-art data centers in both the US and Europe. One thing that I love about LiquidWeb is their 100% uptime guarantee, certainly not something I come across very often. And a great feature for Healthcare workers who can’t afford to waste time waiting for data to arrive, especially in emergency situations. Data is also backed up and monitored, as well as balanced with their block storage and load balancer add-ons.
World Class HIPAA Dedicated Servers
As well as cloud hosting, LiquidWeb also offers HIPAA-Compliant Dedicated Server hosting. Meaning you can go ahead and order a dedicated server with LiquidWeb and ask for it to be made HIPAA compliant – Can’t say better than that!. This is especially useful for larger organizations that require a lot of space and flexibility with their hosting.
Their dedicated servers are fully customizable and built-to-order. LiquidWeb offers a wide variety of both Linux or Windows operating systems for your server to run on.
Best HIPAA FTP Hosting
When it comes to transferring your sensitive files to your server, this process must also be HIPAA compliant. FTP hosting and file transfer is covered when you decided to go with LiquidWeb as they offer a “ServerSecure” platform that adheres to the encryption standards and audit controls required to comply with HIPAA legislation. LiquidWeb has also been externally audited to ensure that it complies with both HIPAA and HITECH legislation. This gives extra peace of mind.
LiquidWeb HIPAA Compliant Packages and Prices
It’s complicated to put a hard and fast price on HIPAA hosting as every company has different requirements. However, LiquidWeb gives a base level cost as follows:
- Single Server HIPAA Hosting – Linux starting at £238, Windows starting at £285
- Multiple Server HIPAA Hosting – Linux starting at £625, Windows starting at £760