Our Approach to HIPAA Compliance The HIPAA law covers thousands of pages. As you would expect, Congress can never do something simply. As the law developed many people had input as to how it should work, what information should be protected, who should be covered, who is affected and who has to be compliant. Most firms do not need to do a GAP analysis to see what procedures need to be changed. It is easier and cheaper just to alter current procedures and implement the new HIPAA methods. All healthcare providers and their business associates are affected in one way or the other by the new HIPAA regulations. Protecting patients' protected health information should be done even if there was no HIPAA to mandate it. It is a good business practice. HIPAA just defines how it should be done. The easiest and cheapest method of implementing the new HIPAA regulations is a step by step process, beginning with recognizing how your firm is currently doing things and then how procedures should be changed. Many of your firm's current procedures are probably already HIPAA compliant; they just need to be documented and your employees trained specifically on the procedures. This web site is a tool to do just that. Business Associates (BA) are not directly affected by HIPAA, but if a BA receives protected health information in any form from a covered entity, the covered entity must require the BA to sign an agreement guaranteeing the information will be treated with the same privacy and security respect as the covered entity must do. Being HIPAA aware is a good business practice for Business Associates or ANY business that deals with protected health information. Having a HIPAAps certification is an assurance to the public and a covered entity, you are HIPAA Aware and practice HIPAA compliance. Our approach looks at the end of the process. When the day comes that your firm must demonstrate HIPAA compliance, what materials and documentation will you need to defend your level of HIPAA compliance? We call that the "thump" factor, the larger the documentation, the better your defense. HIPAAps.com also provides a certificate for your firm and your employees when the process is completed. And we provide a smaller certification logo to be used on business cards and other marketing materials.