You never think it will happen to your practice till it happens to you. What happens to a reactive practice when they ’re impacted by a data breach?
Reactive Compliance: Are You at Risk?
One of the most common, yet dangerous, fallacies is that something could never happen to you. This misguided belief can be detrimental to your practice. For compliance, it is imperative to be proactive, ensuring everything is safe and secure before any issues arise. Investing in compliance software, IT support, and cybersecurity insurance is vital. It's cheaper than scrambling later. Protect your reputation, empower your team, and streamline processes. Recovering from breaches is expensive, involving investigation fees, legal battles, and potential fines. Reactive efforts often lead to scrambling, incurring even higher costs. Reacting to issues often relies on manual and time-consuming workflows, hindering overall efficiency and effectiveness. The damage to your reputation also impacts all of your future opportunities. The consequences of reactive compliance are severe and can be seen in our case study.
What Happened?
So, what happened? Well, Abyde reached out to a practice to educate on HIPAA requirements for over a year. Abyde also attempted to meet with the practice at in-person events. The practice’s owner and doctor refused to review HIPAA requirements with Abyde, believing that the binder the practice used was sufficient to be compliant. Believing that their outdated form of compliance was enough and that their medical practice would not experience a breach was detrimental. Flash forward, and the practice experienced a ransomware attack at the beginning of 2024. As expected, the outdated compliance binder provided minimal support for this practice to navigate the aftermath of a breach. In the wake of a data breach, every second counts. The clock starts ticking on lost revenue, productivity and patients. You risk hemorrhaging sensitive information, eroding trust, and hindering internal operations. The practice now is facing an arduous task ahead, having to rebuild its operations while also seeing patients. The foundation of a compliant practice includes documentation like a Security Risk Analysis (SRA), data breach notifications, an incident response plan, breach risk assessment and training, and more. While no one is completely immune to a breach, your compliance software and IT support can minimize the impact the breach has on your practice. If this practice proactively addressed its compliance efforts, the impact of this ransomware attack could be minimized and handled quickly, allowing the practice to focus on what’s the most important: providing quality care.
What Can I Do?
As said, preventing breaches entirely is unrealistic, but recovery from a breach is in your hands. By proactively utilizing compliance software, like Abyde, having IT support, and cybersecurity insurance, you can mitigate the harmful impacts of a breach. After a breach, swift recovery is critical to minimizing the impact on your entire operation. Thankfully, Abyde is here to help you proactively establish a robust compliance program before risk incidents occur. Abyde offers a simple solution with our revolutionary software, saving you countless hours with our resources. Our software includes an intuitive SRA, dynamically generated policies and procedures for your practice, training, compliance expert support, and much more. With Abyde, your organization can be prepared for risks, and handle them with ease with the help of our software and team of experts. By proactively using compliance software, you pave the way for a culture of excellence that empowers your employees and protects your reputation and patients. Want to learn more about how Abyde can help your practice achieve compliance? Visit us at Abyde.com or send us an email at [email protected].