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To our medical clients and
clients that maintain individually
identifiable health information, please be
advised that we are well aware of the
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA")
governing the privacy of individually
identifiable health information.
In response to changes
taking place in the medical community
regarding Protected Health Information, ACT
Teleservices is now a HIPAA
compliant call center. To reach this level
of compliancy, many improvements have been
made to our business. These include enhanced
employee trainings, webinars, and stricter
guidelines regarding building access,
storage and so on.
As an extension of our
clients, we feel that HIPAA is our concern
as a business associate. As such, we
continue to work with our clients to ensure
we comply with their needs as well as the
requirements of HIPAA. And as standard
practice, we continue to work with each
medical practice and individual physician to
assure the services we provide meet with
their stringent expectations.
The HIPAA subcommittee of
ATSI (Association of TeleServices,
International), our national trade
association, has reviewed all aspects,
impact and responsibilities that affect our
industry as they pertain to HIPAA, HHS
guidelines and the Privacy Rule. ATSI has
contracted with a HIPAA Consulting Firm,
Healthcare Technology Consulting, to provide
our industry with a Business Associate
Agreement that defines our industry's
abilities and limitations yet provides the
Covered Entity with the "necessary and
reasonable assurances" required for
HIPAA compliance. We understand that as a
"Business Associate" we must
provide you with "satisfactory
assurances" that we "will use the
information only for the purposes for which
it was engaged by the covered entity,"
and that we "will safeguard the
information from misuse, and help the
covered entity comply with some of the
covered entities duties under the Privacy
Rule."
Our management staff is available to assist
you with any questions or concerns you may
have regarding your HIPAA compliancy and the
services we provide you.
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