The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in August 2006 to enable better access to health insurance, reduce health care fraud and abuse, and lower the overall cost of health care in the U.S.

All covered entities who store patient data electronically must comply with HIPAA. Covered entities are defined as 1) health plans, 2) health care clearinghouses and 3) health care providers (doctors, dentists, etc.)

SMG Medical, LLC complies with both the HIPAA Privacy and HIPAA Security Rules.

HIPAA Privacy Rule: Mandatory compliance

April 14, 2003 The HIPAA Privacy Rule sets standards for how protected health information "in any form or medium" should be controlled. The HIPAA Privacy Rule specifically requires that privacy and security be built in to the policies and practices of health care providers, plans, and others involved in health care.

HIPAA Security Rule:

Mandatory compliance - April 21, 2005 The HIPAA Security Rule is the first comprehensive Federal protection for the privacy of personal health information. The HIPAA Security Rule identifies standards and implementation specifications that organizations must meet in order to become compliant.

The general requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule establish that covered entities must do the following:

• Ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all electronically protected health information the covered entity creates, receives, maintains or transmits.
• Protect against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such information.
• Protect against any reasonably anticipated uses or disclosures of such information that are not permitted or required.
• Ensure compliance by the workforce.

Specific Compliance Information for SMG Medical, LLC Offsite Backup

Encrypted Data Transfer SMG Medical, LLC uses either industry standard 128/1024/2048-bit SSL encryption (based on OpenSSL) or industry standard OpenSSH. Unencrypted transfer over FTP or standard HTTP is discouraged for all SMG Medical, LLC clients and partners regardless of HIPAA compliance.

Physical Security of Data: SMG Medical, LLC locations are staffed during normal business hours by company personnel and monitored internally and externally with video recording equipment.

Remote and Offsite Backup of Data: SMG Medical, LLC uses automated off-site backup of electronic data as an an essential component of any disaster recovery plan. SMG Medical, LLC offsite backups protect against hardware failure, physical and logical theft, viruses, worms, accidental or intentional deletion and natural disasters.

Access to Data: SMG Medical, LLC data may be accessed over the public Internet, using password-protected OR public-key-protected SSH, SFTP, HTTPS transports.

Written contingency plan: The HIPAA Security rules requires that covered entities have a written contingency plan for responding to system emergencies, and that this plan includes a detailed plan concerning data backup and recovery and related processes in the event of a disaster.

Note: There is not a standard "HIPAA certificate of compliance" for backup products and services. For more information about HIPAA and HIPAA compliance, please contact your legal counsel or refer to the HIPAA section of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' website, which can be found at: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/