Does Your Budget Cover HIPAA Privacy, Compliance, and Security?

by Rick Kam February 26, 2013

You have an important budget approval meeting coming up with your executive management, to review the HIPAA privacy, compliance, and security initiatives in your budget this year. Are you ready?

Here are some of the questions you will need to be prepared for:

Can I prioritize my proposed budget initiatives by “Return on Investment,” so my CFO and CEO can compare my proposal against other alternatives for scarce resources?
What is the appropriate level of investment in HIPAA security of protected health information (PHI) for our organization and business associates?
What is the value of PHI we are managing?

If you can answer these three questions, you are in a greater position to have your budget approved. However, if you are like most HIPAA privacy and healthcare security experts, these are not questions you can readily answer. Yet.

Where can you find help?

You can get a head start at an upcoming industry forum on March 12 and 13, 2013 in Boston. This will prepare you to answer the three questions above—including learning what your PHI is worth—and be ready to present your business case to your executive team. Register for this unique event now at www.phiprotection.org.

About the Author

Rick Kam

Rick Kam, CIPP, is founder and president of ID Experts. He is an expert in privacy and information security. His experience includes leading organizations in policy and solutions to address protecting PHI/PII and resolving privacy incidents and identity theft. He is the chair of the ANSI PHI Project, Identity Management Standards Panel and the Santa Fe Group Vendor Council ID Management working group. He is also an active member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and is a member of the Research Planning Committee for the Center Identity which is part of the University of Texas Austin.

Tags: digital records electronic health records healthcare healthcare data breach response hhs hipaa hipaa compliance hipaa privacy hipaa security hitech hitech act patient privacy phi privacy protected health information security