Compliance Articles

Most companies and medical facilities have voluminous amounts of stored paper and electronic files. That’s due in large part to industry-specific laws and regulations that require files and records be retained for a certain number of years before they can be shredded or otherwise disposed of.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a huge impact on how businesses and industries operate. While most medical facilities are deemed essential service providers, many employees may have transitioned to working from home or are working adjusted hours.

Shredding is more than just a document disposal method. It’s a way to protect sensitive information, maintain customer and employee privacy, and prevent identity theft. It’s also the law—federal regulations like FACTA dictate how organizations should execute document destruction. Failing to follow these rules can result in massive fines, legal troubles, and damages to your brand’s reputation.

Any business that generates hazardous waste must understand and follow the code of federal and state regulations regarding the handling of it, including packaging, labeling, and disposal. Sections 22-22A-1 to 22-22A-16 of the Code of Alabama and various other Acts cover hazardous waste disposal throughout the state. Along with federal laws, they ensure that dangerous waste is properly handled in order to protect public health and the environment.

If your workplace generates regulated medical, pharmaceutical or hazardous waste, having a good handle on the regulatory requirements in regards to handling, transporting and storing that waste is essential. While there are many state and federal agencies that have a hand in regulating this process, the basic framework upon which most of that regulation is based come from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). That means that understanding your responsibilities under the law starts with learning the requirements laid out by RCRA.

As a manager in a medical office or clinic, you are certainly aware of the risks to your staff posed by medical waste, as well as the OSHA regulations that address that risk. Complying with OSHA’s guidelines for medical waste management in the workplace is essential to minimizing risks to employees, protecting their health and safety. It is also essential to protecting your facility against the legal and financial consequences of compliance mistakes. To make things a bit easier, here are a few important steps to help ensure OSHA medical waste compliance in your workplace.

For the administrator or office manager who is in charge of keeping all the medical waste management ducks in a row for her employer’s clinic or practice, keeping on top of employee medical waste compliance training is essential to that process. After all, failing to meet training requirements can have consequences. Poor training can endanger employees and the environment, and it can cost your employer dearly should a lapse in training standards result in citations and fines. So what do you need to know to ensure that everyone gets all the training they must have to keep your employer in line with federal and state requirements?

Did you know that a significant number of hard drives bought on the second hand market still contain personal information? Even despite obvious indications that someone had attempted to overwrite the information. The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires that, “covered entities apply appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect the privacy of protected health information (PHI).” This means that your practice must have safeguards in place that limit any disclosure of PHI.

Secure management of your patient’s medical records is a process that begins the moment the records are created and continues until the moment they are destroyed. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires healthcare providers to regularly shred sensitive documents and proper disposal of all Protected Health Information (PHI) is one of the most vital HIPAA requirements to enforce.

As a hazardous waste generator, you are responsible for familiarizing yourself with state and federal regulations and determining your generator classification. Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established three categories of generators in its hazardous waste generator regulations: