HIPAA Compliance Consulting Services

HIPAA applies to covered entities and their business associates. Covered entities include healthcare providers who transmit health information electronically, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses. Business associates are any third parties that create, receive, store, or transmit PHI while performing services for a covered entity, such as billing companies, cloud hosting providers, and EHR software vendors. If your organisation touches patient data in any of these capacities, the full set of HIPAA obligations applies to you.

OCR structures penalties across four tiers based on culpability. Unknowing violations start at around 100 dollars per violation, while wilful neglect with no corrective action carries penalties of at least 50,000 dollars per violation, with an annual cap of up to 1.5 million dollars per violation category. Criminal charges are possible for intentional misuse. Beyond the financial penalties, a reportable breach triggers mandatory notification, media coverage for large incidents, and lasting damage to patient and payer confidence.

A security risk analysis is a mandatory requirement under the HIPAA Security Rule. It involves documenting where PHI is held and how it flows, identifying threats and vulnerabilities across administrative, physical, and technical safeguard domains, and rating each risk by its likelihood and potential impact. The output is a written risk management plan that drives your remediation programme. OCR requests this document in virtually every investigation, and its absence is treated as a serious compliance failure regardless of your other controls.

Yes, whenever a vendor performs a function that involves creating, receiving, storing, or transmitting PHI on your behalf. A Business Associate Agreement sets out the permitted uses of that data, the vendor's safeguard obligations, and the notification requirements if something goes wrong. Missing or outdated BAAs are among the most common audit findings because many organisations add vendors without running a PHI-exposure check first. We help you identify every party that qualifies, draft compliant agreements, and set up a review cycle so your BAA register stays current.

The Breach Notification Rule requires you to perform a four-factor risk assessment to determine whether unsecured PHI was compromised, contain the incident, and notify affected individuals without unreasonable delay and within 60 calendar days of discovery. Incidents affecting 500 or more individuals also require prompt notification to HHS and, in most cases, prominent media coverage in the relevant state. We help organisations build a response plan before an incident occurs and manage the assessment and notification process correctly when one does, minimising both the regulatory exposure and the reputational impact.