4 Ways to Save Your Urgent Care Center from a Cyberattack

The healthcare sector is almost becoming the preferred target for ransomware attacks. And this includes practices and urgent care clinics too, especially those that cater to a vast number of patients.

Why is the healthcare sector a soft target for cyberattack? Because hackers and other bad actors are in the search for large amounts of data. Healthcare practices and hospitals with all their patient records and details make just the ‘right’ place for such attackers.

Not only can they easily hold healthcare facilities to ransom and disrupt their operations, they are also aware of the fact that the boards heading hospitals and sick facilities are not as tech-savvy as is the case in other industries. Also, individual clinics and facilities do not typically hire enough in-house IT resources, which makes such places an easy target for cyberattacks.

So, what can you do to prevent such attacks from disrupting operations in your urgent care center, especially your urgent care billing services? Here are four ways you can reduce the risk of a data breach in your urgent care setup.

1. Obtain Cyber Insurance

What cyber-liability insurance does is it covers your losses and damages in case your patient data is lost due to a ransomware attack or if it gets stolen. Buy a policy that includes both first-party coverage as well as third-party coverage. A first-party coverage helps pay for loss suffered by your facility, such as the lost revenue, cost of data restoration, business interruption, IT forensics. And, the third-party coverage is used to cover legal costs that your urgent care facility incurs due to the lawsuits filed by your patients. Whenever possible have your partners and vendors provide certificates of insurance before you provide them access to your organizations EHR.

2. Carry Out a Risk Assessment

What is a risk assessment and will it really save you from a cyberattack? Well, even if the assessment cannot prevent an attack, it will sure have you and your organization ready and prepared for what to do in the event of an attack, so there is minimal damage. Knowing the sensitivity of electronic health record (EHR) systems, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act does require medical practices to perform a risk assessment. Such an exercise helps you identify if there are any weaknesses in the policies and procedures that you are following and if the technology you are using is appropriate, safe, and up to date.

In most independent practices e-mails offer massive opportunities to hackers and bad actors. Statistics reveal that almost 90% of malware is transferred through e-mails. Here it is not just your staff who can be at risk of an attack but also your patients. This is because your patients could disclose sensitive and protected information in their e-mails. So along with cautioning your resources who are handling sensitive and confidential data, your patients too need to be warned about not sharing such data openly. And not just e-mails, text messages are equally dangerous and unprotected. To safeguard all patient data have a dedicated patient portal set up so access is limited and patients can directly interact through that portal.

3. Train Staff

Just having checks in place is not enough if your staff is not trained or made up to date about how they should be operating on a regular basis keeping safety as their highest priority. Have special training sessions for your resources about the various IT-related precautions they should take. While responding via e-mails or when handling patient records, your staff should report anything unusual they come across. They should be made aware of how even text messages are unsafe and should never be used to share any sensitive information, especially patient-related data.

4. Outsource Your Billing Work

Urgent care medical billing and coding companies can help you handle your billing work efficiently and securely. How? By providing safe solutions. These solutions will keep your patient data secure and also minimize risk of cyberattacks. When you outsource your billing work to urgent care billing services you have the advantage of not only being able to handle patient data securely, your urgent care setup also benefits from the error-free work these companies provide. They are experts at handling large amounts of patient data and keeping them safe from cyberattacks.

GMB Can Help You

Gables Medical Billing can become your trusted partner in your fight against keeping your patient data safe and secure. To know more about Miami urgent care billing services you can call 786-725-2120; 655-469-1422 and speak to our billing experts.