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To some, document shredding might seem like something you do at home, to make sure your credit information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Or it might seem like something desperate corporate crooks do with incriminating documents, shredding them madly before the police arrive.
In reality, document destruction is an important component to many of the professions that involve the recording of personal information. Imagine if your doctor, your lawyer or your accountant weren’t required to engage in any sort of file record destruction, choosing instead to simply toss them out with the garbage. Your financial and medical records would be out there for anyone to grab, with no thought given to privacy or confidentiality.
Fortunately there are laws in place to ensure that medical and financial professionals practice responsible document destruction. There are two laws in particular:
Medical record shredding is governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996. The initial goal of HIPAA was to protect the health insurance coverage of workers who change or lose their jobs. As such, the law regulates the availability of group and individual health insurance plans.
But it goes further than that. To control fraud and abuse within the health care system, HIPAA requires that medical insurance professionals have certain physical safeguards, which ensure the confidentiality of medical records. Shredding is a key component of these physical safeguards, confining access to health information only to those who need to know.
To be properly HIPAA compliant, medical providers and insurance companies must enact due diligence in their search for a document destruction firm. Accurate Document Destruction, Inc. has simplified this part of the process, by providing the phone number of our own insurance claims representative (under the first of our Frequently Asked Questions.
Financial Record Shredding is governed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, or GLB, which is similar to HIPAA in its approach to document destruction.
Primarily, the GLB repealed the Banking Act of 1933, a post-Depression law prohibiting banks from offering investment and insurance services. But part of the GLB made accountants and attorneys beholden to a set of financial record shredding rules. The law’s so-called “safeguards rule” requires that firms protect their clients by having a plan for the preservation of private information.
To be GLB compliant, financial advisers and other such professionals must also perform due-diligence searches for document destruction firms. Accurate’s clients can call our insurance claims rep to ensure we’re doing things right.
We also offer a sample business associates’ agreement that outlines the nature of our relationship with clients (we’re here for the sole purpose of document shredding) and issue a certificate of destruction upon the completion of the shredding process, as outlines in both HIPAA and the GLB.
Accurate Document Destruction, Inc. handles financial and medical record shredding in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; New York, and New Jersey.
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