The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was established in 1996 with a view to making health insurance accountable. The act also sets standards for healthcare transactions. These standards apply to medical transcription in a big way.

Medical transcriptionists are required to be extremely alert and aware about the confidentiality and security of the medical information that pass through them. The medical records of patients have to be kept confidential at all the stages of the medical transcription work.

Medical transcription companies take several measures to ensure the confidentiality and security of medical records. One of the selling points of a medical transcription company is HIPAA-compliance. Medical transcriptionists employed in a medical transcription company are required to adhere to company policies and processes, thus making their work HIPAA-compliant. The medical transcriptionists who work independently have to take extra care to ensure that their work adheres to the HIPAA guidelines.

Here are a few tips for the home-based medical transcriptionist to ensure HIPAA-compliance.

• Use a firewall and an anti-virus software. Make sure these are updated on a regular basis. The medical information, which includes the voice recording, the drafts of transcribed text, and the complete medical record should be accessible only to you. No one else at home should be able to access your medical transcription work in any way. Try to keep a computer dedicated to medical transcription work so that no one else has access to the system.
• Use passwords to secure all the medical transcription data on your computer.
• Use a secure FTP network to send medical transcription files.
• Use a password to access your FTP site.
• While sending e-mails about your medical transcription work, make sure they are encrypted.
• Keep backing up your work on a separate drive for the purpose of business continuity.

It is important that you ensure all security measures before taking up any medical transcription task.