Shredding Benefits for Healthcare Providers
Healthcare organizations handle sensitive patient records, medical files, diagnostic test results, and other types of protected health information (PHI). Whether you are a dentist, chiropractor, or general practitioner, secure destruction of expired and unwanted PHI is a must. In this blog, we discuss shredding benefits for healthcare providers.
Patient Trust
Healthcare providers commit to a strict code of ethics, including maintaining confidentiality and veracity when caring for patients. The same ethical standards should apply when handling patient records. Patient data is often most vulnerable to unauthorized access at the point of disposal. A paper shredding service eliminates negligent document disposal risks that cause PHI breaches. Your shredding provider places secure shredding collection containers throughout your office, allowing for secure disposal of confidential documents. Depending on the volume of information your healthcare facility needs to destroy, the security collection containers are collected on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis and your documents are professionally destroyed.
HIPAA Compliance
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and Security Rule require HIPAA covered entities and business associates to implement physical, administrative, and technical safeguards for PHI. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) monitors and enforces HIPAA compliance.
Penalties for lack of compliance may include monetary fines and legal action against corporate officers. If your company stores PHI, you must destroy it when it reaches a final disposition date. A shredding service makes sure your expired PHI is disposed of securely and with proper documentation. Your shredding provider issues a Certificate of Destruction after completing your shredding project.
Improved Patient Care
Having trained medical staff shred documents is inefficient and can jeopardize patient care. With a shredding service, instead of having to feed documents into an office shredder, your staff can focus on caring for patients and growing your organization.
Sustainability
Every organization generates paper waste, but the healthcare sector produces a sizeable amount of it every year. A shredding service reduces your healthcare organization’s paper waste. After destroying your documents, your shredding provider transfers the shredded waste to an authorized recycling partner for certified recycling.
Richards & Richards offers shredding and destruction services for businesses throughout Nashville.
For more information about our shredding services, please call us at 615-242-9600 or complete the form on this page.
