Understanding HIPAA: Creating the perfect balance between user experience and privacy is an ongoing battle for app developers. In order to create a great app, you must be willing to leave some personal data exposed. However, there are certain types of information that are best left private, particularly if you’re handling sensitive data that could lead to embarrassment or even discrimination if leaked in the public sphere. If you’re working on a healthcare-related app and want to ensure you’re keeping your users’ privacy intact, it’s important to understand HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) before moving forward with building your app. This article covers everything you need to know about HIPAA as it relates to healthcare apps, including what it is, how it impacts your users’ privacy, and how you can protect their information through your coding practices.
What is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act?
HIPAA is a federal law passed in 1996 that protects the privacy of medical records and makes it a crime to abuse that information. It was designed to protect patients from having their private medical information used against them by insurance companies, employers, and even medical researchers. Because healthcare is such a large and growing industry, it’s critical that all parties involved in the field are compliant with HIPAA. Failure to do so could result in a wide range of consequences for both patients and medical professionals.
Why is HIPAA Important?: Understanding HIPAA
In addition to protecting the privacy of patients, HIPAA sets strict guidelines for the ethical and safe handling of sensitive information. When you’re building a healthcare app, you’ll likely be collecting and storing data like names, birth dates, and social security numbers. Because this information is so important, the federal government has clarified that it is of the utmost importance that it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands. In fact, the potential fines for violating HIPAA are $1,000,000 per violation, which is why it’s important to fully understand the law before developing an app. To be clear, HIPAA doesn’t just protect the data from hackers and malicious outsiders. It also protects the privacy of your app users and prevents you from using their information for anything other than what it was intended for.
What Are The Consequences of Violating HIPAA?
If you’re found to be violating HIPAA, it’s important to understand that there are serious consequences for your actions. This doesn’t just mean that your app is shut down and you lose a few customers; it could also lead to serious fines and even jail time if your violation is serious enough. You could be fined upwards of $50,000 per violation, and there is no maximum penalty. In other words, if you’re being careless with your user’s data, you could be facing some serious financial repercussions.
If you’re caught violating HIPAA, you could also face serious damage to your business’s reputation, which could lead to long-lasting and even irreversible damage. If your app is shut down and you’re sued for negligence, your reputation could be severely damaged. This could lead to a decrease in customers, difficulty hiring new employees, and could even prevent you from getting loans in the future.
How to Comply with HIPAA When Developing Healthcare Apps?
While HIPAA is a very important law, it isn’t necessarily written in clear terms that make it easy to understand. Fortunately, there are a few things you can keep in mind to ensure you’re fully compliant with the law while also delivering a great app experience. First, you’ll want to make sure your app is encrypted. This means that end-to-end Communication is sent over HTTPS, which prevents third parties from viewing the data being sent.
This is particularly important for apps that involve the transmission of sensitive information, like emails or medical documents. Secondly, you’ll want to make sure you’re HIPAA compliant by implementing appropriate privacy policies. This means that you’ll need to include a clear privacy policy in your terms to inform your users of how you’ll be handling their data. Remember that you’re not just protecting yourself from fines and legal trouble, but also your users. If you don’t respect their privacy, they’re likely to delete your app and tell their friends not to download it as well. This could lead to serious consequences for your business.
Conclusion
HIPAA is a very important federal law that protects the privacy of medical records. When building a healthcare app, it’s critical to understand how to comply with HIPAA and ensure that your users’ information is kept private. There are a few ways you can ensure your app is fully HIPAA compliant, including encrypting transmissions, including clear privacy policies in your app’s terms, and storing sensitive data in a secure location. If you’re careful to follow these guidelines, you can build a healthcare app that is fully compliant with HIPAA and maintains a high level of user privacy.
