HIPAA Training for Physicians
HIPAA training for physicians needs to consist of more than the minimum required training in order to help physicians rebuild any loss of trust in patient-physician relationships following a HIPAA privacy violation or data breach. It is also important that, when physicians are responsible for implementing remediation efforts following a privacy violation or data breach, the remediation efforts do not impact the delivery of healthcare.
The minimum required HIPAA training for physicians consists of training on the healthcare organization’s policies and procedures with respect to Protected Health Information (PHI) and security awareness training. Most physicians also receive some HIPAA awareness training during medical training, while HIPAA awareness may also be a factor in other training programs such as CMS’ Emergency Plan training and OSHA bloodborne pathogen training. The HIPAA Journal is the top vendor of HIPAA training for physicians. The HIPAA Journal offers HIPAA training programs designed to meet the specific needs of physicians and their teams. The training is accredited and includes testing and certification to ensure a clear understanding of key HIPAA requirements. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) are also provided, supporting ongoing professional development. The course content is practical and relevant to clinical settings, including guidance on emerging topics such as the appropriate use of social media. The HIPAA Journal’s training helps physicians stay informed and maintain compliance in their day-to-day practice.
However, because the consequences of HIPAA privacy violations and data breaches can impact patient-physician relationships, it is beneficial for physicians to have a greater understanding of the HIPAA Rules in order to rebuild patient trust when necessary. It can also be beneficial for physicians to have a greater understanding of the HIPAA Rules when they are responsible for implementing remediation efforts to prevent future privacy violations and data breaches.
Physicians and their Front Line Roles
Physicians are the front line of healthcare. Their roles include examining patients, discussing their health concerns, and diagnosing illnesses or other medical conditions. Based on their assessments, physicians prescribe medications and develop treatment plans, refer patients to specialists, collaborate with care teams, and/or liaise with family carers to help support patients through their recovery or manage terminal conditions.
Because physicians are often portals to secondary care services, their assessments can affect the whole of each patient’s care journey. However, the accuracy of assessments may often depend on the information provided by the patient. The more information a physician has about patients’ symptoms, comorbidities, lifestyle, and preconceptions, the more accurate assessments will be – leading to more effective treatment plans and support programs.
It is for this reason that healthy patient-physician relationships are important. If a patient trusts their physician, they will share more sensitive information with them and adhere to treatment plans. However, when trust is lost, patients are not so willing to disclose sensitive information. This can have a negative impact on patient outcomes due to physicians having less information on which to base accurate assessments, and/or due to patients not complying with treatment plans or taking advantage of support services.
Why Patients Lose Trust in Physicians
Many sources suggesting why patients lose trust in physicians conflate physicians with healthcare systems or start from a place at which no previous trust existed. It can also be difficult to find sources that factor in the COVID-19 pandemic and the conflicting information provided by federal agencies, the media, and other influential sources. However, if you review data published prior to 2020, information exists that is relevant to HIPAA training for physicians.
One of the most relevant sources is a series of surveys into medical identity theft conducted by the Ponemon Institute between 2010 and 2015. In the last of the series, 85% of respondents who were aware that healthcare provider negligence was responsible for them being a victim of medical identity theft (i.e., via a HIPAA breach notification*) reported “some” or a “significant” impact on trust – even if the reason for the data breach was not attributable to their physician.
Rebuilding the loss of trust was made more difficult by patient records being misused by third parties and corrupted. According to the Ponemon surveys, 15% of medical identity theft victims were subsequently misdiagnosed because of inaccuracies in their medical records, 13% received incorrect treatments, and 11% were prescribed the wrong medication to treat their conditions, or treatments were delayed while contradictions in their medical records were resolved.
(*) In 2024, breaches affecting 146,463,977 patients were notified to HHS’ Office for Civil Rights – approximately 42% of the US population. Due to the scale of the February 2024 ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, many patients will not receive HIPAA breach notification letters until mid-2025. For this reason, all physicians are advised to follow the advice provided later in this article regarding how patients can protect themselves from medical identity theft.
The Role of HIPAA Training for Physicians in Rebuilding Trust
No amount of HIPAA training for physicians can prevent HIPAA privacy violations and data breaches for which others are responsible. However, by understanding exactly what information is protected by HIPAA, how privacy violations and data breaches occur, and what patients can do to mitigate the likelihood of becoming victims of medical identity theft, physicians can start rebuilding patient-physician relationships and reverse the negative impact on patient outcomes
The minimum required HIPAA training for physicians does not fully cover these areas of HIPAA. For example, while privacy and policy training may define what is considered PHI under HIPAA, it often does not explain the situation when identifiers are maintained outside of designated record sets. Similarly, while many data breaches are attributed to cyberattacks in HIPAA breach notification letters, the event that allowed the cyberattack to occur is frequently overlooked.
Therefore it is beneficial for physicians to receive training on areas of HIPAA that would not normally “affect their functions”, but which can help patients feel reassured and/or take greater responsibility for the security and integrity of their health data. There may be different areas of HIPAA that apply to physicians working in different healthcare environments; but, based on the examples mentioned above, additional HIPAA training for physicians could include:
What is – and what isn’t – HIPAA PHI
Protected Health Information is information relating to a patient’s health condition, treatment for the condition, and payment for the treatment. Any other information that could identify the subject of the PHI also assumes protected status when it is maintained in the same designated record set. Identifiers such as names, cellphone numbers, and addresses are not protected by HIPAA when they are maintained in a database that does not include the subject’s PHI.
The reason this is important to know is because HIPAA breach notification letters must include a description of what data may have been accessed, stolen, or corrupted. In many cases, HIPAA breach notification letters have been sent “in an abundance of caution” (when a breach cannot be confirmed) or when data has been accessed, stolen, or corrupted, but it is not data that relates to the patient’s health condition, treatment, or payment and does not qualify as PHI.
If HIPAA training for physicians explains the distinction between PHI and other personal identifying information and the organization’s policies for sending HIPAA breach notification letters, physicians will be better placed to discuss the nature of the breach with patients and the potential consequences – or lack of potential consequences. Having a knowledgeable professional to discuss these issues with can be the first stage of rebuilding trust with patients
The human element in data breaches
Most data breaches and other impermissible disclosures of PHI have a “human element”. This may be an unwitting interaction with a phishing email, losing a laptop with access to PHI, or making a mistake when configuring a server on which PHI is stored. Misdeliveries of PHI by mail and email attributable to human error are also a leading contributor to reported data breaches. According to Verizon’s DBIR Report, 83% of healthcare data breaches have a human element.
The scale of data breaches attributable to human “vulnerabilities” implies that most healthcare organizations’ security systems are sufficiently robust to withstand most types of cyberattacks most of the time. If this was not the case, data breaches would be occurring more frequently. While this may not immediately reassure a patient whose treatment has been delayed due to medical identity theft, it may contribute towards rebuilding a patient-physician relationship.
Including this information in HIPAA training for physicians (or for any other workforce member with a public-facing role) gives physicians leverage to address other concerns a patient may have that are unrelated to the security of their healthcare data. For example, by overcoming the reluctance to disclose sensitive information, a physician may be able to unmask anxiety about a healthcare condition that would otherwise may remained hidden from the physician.
How patients can protect themselves
When HIPAA training for physicians solely focuses on the healthcare organization’s policies and procedures with respect to Protected Health Information (PHI) and security awareness training, the training is likely to include very little on patients’ HIPAA rights and how patients can exercise their rights. However, it is important physicians are trained on these topics so they can advise patients how to protect themselves from medical identity theft and mitigate the consequences.
The key to helping patients protect themselves is by advising them to regularly request copies of their PHI, accountings of disclosures, and Explanation of Benefit statements. Patients can then use these documents to identify anomalies in their healthcare, payment, and benefits data, and bring them to the organization’s attention. It is also beneficial to advise patients that an anomaly does not necessarily mean there has been a data breach. It could be an administrative issue.
Advising patients on how best to protect themselves from medical identity theft and mitigate the consequences when a data breach occurs further helps rebuild any loss of trust in patient-physician relationships following a HIPAA privacy violation or data breach. It can also result in a patient querying an anomaly attributable to a previously unidentified data breach, which may prevent many hundreds of other patients becoming victims of medical identity theft.
How HIPAA Training can Benefit Remediation Efforts
Following a data breach or privacy violation, healthcare organizations commonly adopt more stringent policies and procedures to prevent a repeat of the event. In some cases, remediation efforts can be far more stringent than necessary – resulting in a deterioration in the speediness and quality of care. One survey identified an increased time to ECG for patients demonstrating symptoms of a STEMI heart attack and an increased mortality rate over the next three years.
When physicians are involved in the adoption of remediation efforts, their knowledge of HIPAA can help avoid scenarios in which policies and procedures are adopted that can negatively impact the delivery of healthcare. However, if HIPAA training for physicians only consists of the minimum required training, it is unlikely they will have the holistic knowledge required to determine which policies and procedures are too stringent and which are necessary.
Online HIPAA awareness training can provide a shortcut to the HIPAA knowledge physicians need to make informed decisions about HIPAA compliance. Training of this nature tends to provide an overview of all HIPAA Rules so physicians can identify which areas of HIPAA they need to know more about in order to rebuild trust in patient-physician relationships and implement remediation efforts that do not impact the speediness and quality of care.
However, while most HIPAA awareness training courses cover similar information, it is important to be aware that some are more comprehensive than others. To find the HIPAA training for physicians most suitable for an individual’s or organization’s needs, it is advisable to request a trial module from a vendor whose HIPAA awareness training course is accredited by a recognized training assessor – for example, by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
