Data breaches in healthcare are expensive and difficult to manage. With the average breach costing millions in damages and triggering OCR investigations, healthcare practices must understand how the HIPAA Security Rule applies to data contained in electronic systems.
Unlike the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which governs the sharing of protected health information (PHI), the Security Rule focuses on the storage, transmission, and protection of electronic PHI (ePHI).
With cyberattacks growing more frequent, strict compliance is more critical than ever.
The HIPAA Security Rule was specifically designed to cover all electronic protected health information (ePHI) created, received, maintained, or transmitted by covered entities and their business associates.
That includes EHRs, cloud-hosted scheduling platforms, and even backups on encrypted drives.
The HIPAA Security Rule applies to healthcare providers, health plans, clearinghouses, and third-party vendors who handle data on their behalf. Under the HITECH Act, business associates are directly liable for violations, making HIPAA compliance a shared responsibility throughout your vendor chain.
For practices navigating this landscape, staying ahead of enforcement means addressing both legal and operational gaps.
Whether you’re launching a new system or running a practice you just acquired, it’s essential to have safeguards in place from day one.
The HIPAA Security Rule standards are organized into three broad categories:
One often overlooked area is staff education. Routine HIPAA Security Rule training helps prevent human error, which remains the leading cause of healthcare data breaches. But training alone isn’t enough. Your policies must be documented, regularly updated, and actually implemented.
For example, failing to enforce access restrictions or to log user activity on shared terminals could open the door to a serious breach even if the system itself is technically secure.
The rule’s primary goal is to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of ePHI. That means:
As we’ve seen in real-world examples from major breaches, such as those involving Tricare and Shields Healthcare Group, gaps in even one of these three areas can lead to significant risk and exposure.
Enforcement of the Security Rule is the responsibility of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) within the Department of Health and Human Services. OCR investigates after data breaches, patient complaints, or as part of random audits. Fines are tiered by severity, but penalties increase when a provider fails to perform a security risk assessment or fails to address documented deficiencies.
Practices that assume good intentions will protect them often find out the hard way that regulators prioritize documentation, not assumptions. If a compliance failure leads to a dispute with an employee, legal exposure can multiply.
From a business standpoint, compliance with the HIPAA Security Rule must be baked into daily operations. That includes:
For growing practices, especially those expanding digitally, a compliance program must be more than a binder on a shelf. It needs to work in real time, right, and evolve right along with your systems.
As part of your broader strategy, securing ePHI should go hand-in-hand with efforts to protect healthcare data from cybersecurity risks and build trust with patients and regulators alike.
Compliance isn’t one-size-fits-all. A qualified HIPAA lawyer can help assess your current security posture, guide your risk analysis, and tailor a plan that fits your size, risk profile, and tech stack. Legal support is invaluable when:
Most importantly, legal counsel can help ensure your compliance program aligns with how you run your practice.
Don’t wait until after a breach to find out whether your security practices are defensible. A proactive compliance review can help you identify and close gaps, strengthen documentation, and reduce exposure before regulators take action.
At Fenton Jurkowitz Law Group, we help providers navigate the technical and legal requirements of the HIPAA Security Rule, ensuring their policies withstand scrutiny and their teams are equipped to respond effectively. Reach out to a HIPAA violation attorney to get the support your practice needs to stay compliant.