TransAct Ensures Your Credit Card Processing is HIPAA and PCI Compliant
Maintaining HIPAA and PCI compliant payment processing can be a major headache, but failure to do so can be catastrophic. Healthcare providers are prime targets for those looking to steal sensitive financial information, and the need to protect and secure this data is critical for your business and your patients.
At TransAct, we live and breathe this stuff, and will give you a complete risk assessment and management plan to ensure your payment processing and other financial transactions and merchant services are fully compliant with both HIPAA and PCI standards.
The Difference between HIPAA and PCI
HIPAA compliance audits are required by federal law, and are based on OCR (Office of Civil Rights) protocols that are continuously updated and enforced. PCI compliance is defined by the PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council), which has a vested interest in keeping consumer data safe. Because HIPAA and PCI are focused on protecting different types of information, they have different audit guidelines, safeguard requirements, and consequences for non-compliance or breaches.
PCI guidelines are also far more rigorous and specific that HIPAA guidelines, which are more focused on policies, training, and processes, but while there is some overlap, PCI compliance does not necessarily guarantee HIPAA compliance and vice versa, so health care providers need to make sure they are meeting both sets of requirements.
The Penalties for Non-Compliance
HIPAA holds healthcare providers accountable for protecting patient information under federal law, so failure to meet HIPAA compliance guidelines can result in significant fines, and potentially even jail time. PCI guidelines are put in place by the payment card industry, so while there are no criminal penalties involved, failure to comply can result in fines that can easily amount to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and can even result in the loss of card processing privileges, severely harming your business.
Going Beyond Payment Processing
While PCI deals exclusively with payment processing, HIPAA also involves other aspects of your business, such as Electronic Health Records, so be sure you have a plan in place to ensure HIPAA in these areas as well.