Cirius Whitepaper for Medical Practices

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1 Cirius Whitepaper for Medical Practices Reputation management, increased efficiency and cost savings: How secure messaging is enabling far more than regulatory compliance for medical practices. Summary In this age of heightened patient information regulation, secure messaging, including encryption, is a critical solution for medical practices to ensure regulatory compliance with HIPAA and the Omnibus Final Rule. But secure messaging platforms have evolved far beyond traditional encryption. Today, many medical practices are taking advantage of powerful, yet easy-to-integrateand-use, cloud-based information management platforms that enable greater communication, collaboration and productivity in a secure environment. In addition to protecting their reputation and bottom line, these medical practices are seeing improved patient experiences, increased efficiency and reduced business expenses. Introduction Medical clinics are among the fastest growing adopters of cloud secure messaging because of their mandate to comply with HIPAA and the Omnibus Final Rule. However, secure messaging has even greater impact for healthcare providers when it becomes a core information management tool that encompasses secure communications, including on mobile devices; data loss prevention and large file transfer. The result is a differentiated medical services environment that delivers a superior patient experience, has increased worker productivity, reduced expenses and a reputation of trust.

2 The Impact of the HIPAA Omnibus Final Rule on Medical Practices By now, every medical practice should be aware that HIPAA and the Omnibus Final Rule holds healthcare services providers responsible for the protection of patient health information (PHI). It is every medical practice s responsibility to implement safeguards to ensure the security of their patient information. Secure messaging ensures the following regulatory conditions are met: Requirement: The availability of copies of electronic medical records at the patient s request. These documents must be sent using a secure delivery method. Compliance: Secure messaging empowers practices to quickly and easily provide electronic patient records through a fully secure platform. In addition to compliance regulation, research shows that an increasing number of patients prefer electronic patient records to paper records. Secure messaging has an even greater impact for healthcare providers when it becomes a core information management tool. Requirement: If a medical practice can demonstrate a low probability that the patient information has been compromised, breach notification is not necessary. The following four risk factors are assessed to determine whether the incident meets this threshold of low probability: 1. The nature and extent of the PHI involved, including the types of identifiers and the likelihood of re-identification. 2. The unauthorized person who used the PHI or to whom the disclosure was made. 3. Whether the PHI was actually acquired or viewed. 4. The extent to which the risk to the PHI has been mitigated. Requirement: Safeguarding against all types of data breaches, even in cases where a patient s personal data is limited, such as no birth date or zip code. Compliance: Secure messaging prevents unsecured information from accidently being shared. With these capabilities, medical practices are far better equipped to avoid the fiasco of a patient data breach. Given the potential legal costs, penalties and the devastation to the reputation of the practice, savvy medical practices understand how core secure messaging is to the foundation of their practice. Compliance: Secure messaging plays a pivotal role in helping medical clinics meet this low probability threshold for PHI breaches with advanced control features that include real-time tracking, message recall, forward/ reply freeze and For Your Eyes Only (F.Y.E.O) password protection.

3 The Real Value of Secure Messaging For Medical Practices While secure messaging is essential for HIPAA security and compliance, the true value of the solution lies in its ability to help medical practices differentiate themselves from the competition. Improved Patient Experience Reputation is everything for a medical practice and word-of-mouth is still a practice s most valuable marketing tool. Secure messaging is a reputation insurance policy that gives your patients confidence that their information will be safe with your practice. Secure messaging can empower your practice to build and maintain a reputation of trust. In addition, patients will appreciate the increased efficiency of communications, knowing these communications are fully secured. With secure messaging, you and your patients can securely exchange information with using regular or through their web browser, a smart phone or tablet. Patients will no longer have to fill out or print out paper forms prior to an appointment. With secure messaging, patients can safely fill out web form on your website. With secure messaging, your practice can easily and securely prescriptions to a pharmacy. No more cumbersome and time-consuming paper prescriptions. With secure messaging, both you and your patients can have real-time knowledge about whether s were received and what subsequent actions were taken. This type of transparent communication can be a big competitive differentiator for your practice....word-of-mouth is still a practice s most valuable marketing tool. Improved Employee Productivity Secure messaging helps medical practices become far more efficient at managing their information by vastly reducing dependence on paper-based processes. With secure messaging: Employees no longer have to fax or mail medical records, invoices, prescriptions and other documents. Instead, employees can securely these documents to expedite communications with patients, other providers, pharmacies and insurance companies. Employees no longer have to transcribe handwritten patient forms that can sometimes be difficult to read, thanks to the secure web forms through secure messaging. Employees are equipped with better information and are less likely to make needless follow-ups with patients and providers. Secure messaging enable employees to know whether an has been read and what action was taken. For example, an employee can send an appointment or payment reminder to a patient and know exactly when the message was read. Employees can easily and securely large files including medical x-rays and scans. Secure messaging also enables recipients to easily and securely send back any large files. Employees can use all devices including smart phones and tablets to send and receive secure messages using any web browser at any location. Reduced Business Expenses The cost savings of secure messaging is a welcome surprise for many medical practices. In fact, secure messaging easily pays for itself with the following unexpected cost savings: Postage and parcel Fax lines and fax machines Paper shredding and storage SMS and voice services used for automated appointment reminders

4 A Huge Step Beyond Traditional Encryption Traditional encryption solutions have earned a reputation for being difficult to use and deploy, for having low user adoption, and for ultimately providing little net value to a practice over and above compliance....secure messaging lays the foundation for an efficient and successful medical practice. Today, cloud-based secure messaging solutions like Cirius are changing the game by providing bottom line business value and return on investment that go far beyond encryption for regulatory compliance. And because these tools integrate with existing systems that employees are already using and are hosted in the cloud, they are much more end-user friendly and don t require any extra technical knowhow or resources to implement and support them. Cirius is one of the fastest growing secure messaging platforms on the market. It is being adopted rapidly by medical practices not only because it is remarkably easy to use and deploy, but also because it delivers essential business value and a competitive advantage beyond compliance. Cirius secure messaging goes beyond traditional encryption in the following ways: Simple to use: Cirius integrates with existing infrastructure including Microsoft Outlook, Office 365, Gmail, Yahoo and other standard platforms using existing addresses. Doesn t require technical know-how: No need to bring on IT staff to implement or support Cirius secure messaging. As a cloud-based solution, Cirius has no hardware to install, deploys in minutes, and uses existing infrastructure so it is virtually transparent to the user. Custom branded environment: Cirius can be customized to fit the branded look and feel of your practice to ensure a consistent employee and patient experience. Reputation protection: Cirius enables practices to build a reputation of trust in which patients feel confident their information is safe and secure. Controlled communications: Cirius patented user-friendly Delivery Slip feature empowers employees to track when an is received and read and control whether it can be replied to or forwarded by the receiver. Employees can recall a message after it has been sent and apply password protection for sensitive information. Integrates with any existing archiving system: Cirius provides simple, automatic decryption with any existing archiving system to ensure your internal information management processes are seamless and easy from start to finish.

5 Conclusion Although medical practices initially adopt secure messaging to comply with HIPAA and the Omnibus Final Rule, these practices soon discover that secure messaging lays the foundation for an efficient and successful practice. Cirius secure messaging enables practices to improve the patient experience, increase employee productivity and lower business costs. To experience the ease and power of secure messaging, go to cirius.com/trial to download a free 30-day trial. About Cirius Cirius is a simplified, secure communications and information management solution that enables companies to protect and control and valuable company data. More than 5,000 customers worldwide from small businesses to global enterprises, in every industry sector depend on Cirius innovative platform to communicate securely on any device, rapidly transfer larger files and prevent sensitive data loss. Cirius is a cloud-based solution that is easy to use and deploy, yet powerful in its many applications. In this age of growing regulatory oversight and increased pressure to safeguard customer data, Cirius is helping companies gain a competitive edge through better relationships, increased productivity, lower overhead, and a reputation of trust. Visit cirius.com for more information.