Confidential document shredding is crucial to remain HIPAA compliant and to protect your patients’ and clients’ sensitive data and personal information. Superior Medical Waste Disposal specializes in the safe and compliant handling of secure documents. Contact us today for a quote.
What Is Medical Record Shredding?
Commercial document shredding is used in almost every United States healthcare facility. The most common reason to use an on-site shredding service is to stay in compliance with HIPAA policies. Using medical shredding services ensures your office is properly disposing of clients’ private documents that are protected by HIPAA.
The gray and white locking consoles seen throughout a healthcare office are used to store sensitive documents safely. There are also garbage bin-sized containers used in the back of faculties. The paper waste is shredded on-site in one of our shredding partner’s trucks, and the empty console is returned to the office to be refilled.
Sensitive Document Producer Best Practices
HIPAA-compliant medical record shredding requires you to shred PHI documents (or hard drives) in a way so that the PHI is not only unreadable but impossible to reconstruct. In other words, it should be impossible to reenact a scene from a film where a spy takes a shredded document from a bin and pastes the pieces back together.
Remember that the shredding process doesn’t apply solely to paper records. If you choose to shred other file types, the same protocols apply. You must use the appropriate technology to ensure the files are not only destroyed but unsalvageable.
Recycling of Shredded Paper
All the paper shredded from our HIPAA-compliant shredding partner is recycled. They recycle over 2 million pounds of paper per year! Rest assured, the best way to keep your customers’ information safe and our planet safe is to use Superior Medical Waste for the secure disposal of documents.
Confidential Document Shredding Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Who regulates if we are properly shredding our customers' constative documents?
HIPAA requires offices to shred PHI documents so they are unreadable.
How long can we store documents before having them shredded?
This depends on the type of document that needs to be shredded. For instance, tax information should be kept for 7 years prior to shredding. Customer contact information should be shredded within 30 days.
Where should our facility store the shredding consoles prior to the shredding day?
Typically 32-gallon consoles are stored around the office under desks or out in the open. The larger 95-gallon consoles are usually left in a garage or back of building area.
Why Have A Shred Truck Manage Sensitive Documents?
Although it may seem less expensive to shred documents in-house. It can be extremely time consuming for your staff members to individually place papers into a shred machine. This ends up costing many companies more money than actually paying a on-site shred service to come to their door and shred all their paper in minutes.
Who Regulates Sensitive Documents?
HIPAA doesn’t just relate to the way you share and store data. It specifically covers the destruction of protected health information (PHI). While most of the emphasis is on the destruction of electronic records, healthcare organizations with paper records need to be careful, too.
As a covered entity, you must be careful of the way you destroy data. The HIPAA Security Rule demands that you use the appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of PHI, even as it leaves your door.
HIPAA doesn’t explicitly cover shredding. A control + F search of the law won’t bring up any results. However, HIPAA doesn’t cover best practices. It asks you to take reasonable and appropriate action. And by using shredding, you introduce the process into the legislation on your own.
What are different names for document shredding?
Some different names for document shredding are:
- Paper Shredding
- Document Destruction
- Secured Document Destruction
- Document Shredding
- Sensitive Material Removal
What are some examples of douments that should be securely shredded?
Types of information that facilities must have shredded: any documents that contain individually identifiable health information.
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- Patient Medical Records
- Hard drives
- Tapes
- X-ray films
- Birth Dates
- Geographic Identifiers
- Phone Numbers
- Fax Numbers
- Email Addresses
- Medical Record Numbers
- Biometric Identifiers
- Photos of Faces
- Account Numbers
- Certificate/License Numbers
- Vehicle Identifiers and License Plate Numbers
- Device Identifiers and Serial Numbers
- Web URLs
- IP Addresses
- Unique Identifying Numbers
- Social Security Numbers
Superior Can Help With Secured Document Shredding
We know that proper paper waste removal is just as important as medical waste removal. That is why we have partnered with another local company that shares the same values we hold. If you need medical shredding services at your healthcare facility, Superior can get it done. Contact us today for a quote.
