Vital information for all business owners

by Cheryl Baumgartner Medical Billing/Coding/Insurance
Do you have a business? Did you know that you are covered by ID theft protection laws? The size of your business doesn’t matter; there are no small business exemptions from these laws. If you have personal information that you use for a business purpose the law affects you.
The main federal laws are FACTA, HIPAA and GLB. You probably aren’t familiar with these laws but that will not protect you. Ignorance of the law is not a defense. So the best business move you can make is to get educated. Each of these laws requires certain actions on your part and failure to take those actions can mean the devastation of your business. In addition to Federal law, many states have enacted laws pertaining to consumer’s personal information and how it must be handled.
Since the laws vary from state to state, let’s concentrate on the Federal ones starting with FACTA.
FACTA
This law is the one we recognize as allowing us the free credit report once a year. That’s only part of the big picture. Under FACTA you are required to truncate credit cards numbers. In addition there are rules you must follow for the proper storage and disposal of personal information about your employees, vendors and customers. Failure to do so can result in fines of up to $2,500 per occurrence and civil liability with no statutory limits. That means if you lose information today, victims can sue you 20-30 years down the line.
HIPAA
This law deals with health information and insurance. Patient information has strict guidelines that must be followed. Do you provide health insurance to your employees? If you do and you have access to the insurance policy number you fall under HIPAA. The policy number is considered health information. HIPAA carries penalties of up to $250,000 per occurrence and other consequences.
GLB (Gramm, Leach, Bliley)
GLB is targeted towards financial institutions. But under GLB, financial institution does not just means banks. Anyone who provides financial services or pulls credit reports can be termed a financial institution under GLB. Mortgage brokers, auto dealerships, CPA’s and pawn shops all fall under the description of financial institution. This law carries the most severe penalties of the three. Not only the fine of up to $1,000,000 per occurrence, but removal of management, up to 10 years jail time and criminal charges in addition to the civil liability is possible.
It makes sense to know about these laws and how they can affect your business. Human Resources directors and risk managers of companies are beginning to realize the severity of the laws and are taking steps to minimize the risk to their businesses. Of course small businesses don’t have the finances to hire risk managers. The FTC has said that they will hold businesses responsible for failure to protect consumer’s information. They have also said they are not looking for a perfect system but they do want to see reasonable measures in place. To see an overview of a program that can help you go to www.u254314.idtforhr.com

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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