Surepayroll recently put out their monthly Small Business Scorecard which presented an interesting statistic – the biggest fear for small businesses is government regulations. Of course this is nothing new to those businesses in regulated industries such as healthcare.
Any change in regulations can have a big impact on the life of small practices from The Affordable Care Act (ACA) to HIPAA. Earlier this year, Forbes put the estimated fiscal effect of ACA at $18 billion less revenue going into private medical practices. Large hospitals and medical centers have departments and staffs who can help navigate the organization through the minefield of regulations like the recently released Meaningful Use Stage 3, interoperability guidelines. PwC’s Health Research Institute, states that because of Stage 3, “hospitals and physicians must make a concerted effort to engage consumers in the use of EHRs.” Unfortunately, smaller providers are often left out in the cold when it comes to the resources (financial and manpower) needed to comply with regulations like Stage 3. It’s left up to overworked staff and owners to step outside their areas of expertise instead. Thankfully there’s now more resources available than ever to help guide small practices through compliance, such as the Interoperability Roadmap created by the ONC. The need for real solutions has also driven the growth of vendors like Paubox, a HIPAA compliant email encryption service. Small healthcare providers, such as dentists, physicians and psychologists, have implemented Paubox solutions to make it easier to engage patients through easy to use encrypted email.
Try Paubox Email Suite for FREE today.
