HIPAA Coach provides HIPAA awareness training resources. The HIPAA Coach website was created to provide the most up-to-date news and HIPAA Awareness training articles in relation to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. We aim to be the most authoritative source of information in relation to HIPAA for everyone that HIPAA impacts, including individuals, organizations and businesses. We believe that we are helping to prevent data breaches, protect the private health data of individuals and enable organizations avoid the financial penalties and repetitional demand of HIPAA violations.
HIPAA Awareness Training Course
HIPAA awareness training teaches staff how to use, disclose, safeguard, and report issues involving protected health information (PHI) under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, HIPAA Security Rule, and HIPAA Breach Notification Rule.
HIPAA awareness training applies to personnel whose job functions involve protected health information in any form, including oral communications, paper records, and electronic protected health information. The training also applies to personnel who administer, develop, support, or use systems that store, process, or transmit electronic protected health information, even when their primary job function is not clinical. HIPAA awareness training supports day-to-day compliance by aligning workforce conduct with written policies and procedures, access controls, and incident reporting pathways.
Regulatory Requirements for HIPAA Training
The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires HIPAA Covered Entities to train workforce members on the organization’s HIPAA policies and procedures as necessary and appropriate for their functions. Training under the HIPAA Privacy Rule focuses on permitted uses and disclosures, privacy safeguards, patient rights handling, and internal procedures that govern protected health information.
The HIPAA Security Rule requires HIPAA Covered Entities and Business Associates to implement a security awareness and training program for all workforce members, including management. Training under the HIPAA Security Rule addresses safeguards for electronic protected health information, security incident reporting, and workforce practices that reduce unauthorized access and disclosure risk.
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule establishes notification obligations after discovery of a breach of unsecured protected health information. Training supports timely internal reporting so that designated privacy and security personnel can conduct assessments and meet notification timelines.
Workforce Members Who Require Training
All staff in contact with protected health information must receive HIPAA training. Workforce status includes employees, volunteers, trainees, students, temporary staff, and other persons whose conduct is under the direct control of the organization, whether or not they receive compensation.
Business Associates should apply the same approach to any personnel who create, receive, maintain, or transmit protected health information on behalf of a HIPAA Covered Entity. This includes staff who perform client support, billing or revenue cycle services, data hosting, system administration, software development, analytics, and managed services where protected health information exposure can occur.
HIPAA Awareness Training Frequency
Organizations commonly provide HIPAA awareness training during onboarding before a workforce member gains access to protected health information or systems that contain electronic protected health information. Organizations also provide additional training when changes to policies, procedures, systems, or workflows affect how workforce members handle protected health information.
Annual HIPAA training is an industry best practice for refresher training. Annual refreshers reinforce policy requirements, address recurring error patterns, and support documentation that training occurred during the prior year.
Core HIPAA Awareness Training Content
Training needs to define protected health information and describe how protected health information is created, accessed, used, disclosed, stored, transmitted, and disposed in the organization’s operations. Staff need job-relevant direction on verbal disclosures, workstation practices, printed materials, and use of mobile devices and remote access tools.
Training needs to address permitted uses and disclosures of protected health information, including organizational workflows that rely on treatment, payment, and health care operations when applicable. Staff need direction on when an authorization is required, how to follow organizational processes for validating authorizations, and how to route requests that fall outside workforce authority.
Training needs to cover the HIPAA Minimum Necessary Rule. Staff need direction on limiting access, use, and disclosure to the minimum protected health information needed to perform assigned duties, consistent with role-based access and documented workflows.
Training needs to address patient rights under the HIPAA Privacy Rule where the organization’s functions involve patient interactions or protected health information handling tied to requests. Staff need direction on routing access requests, amendments, restrictions, and accounting of disclosures requests to designated personnel and on avoiding informal responses that bypass required processes.
Training needs to address administrative, physical, and technical safeguards that protect electronic protected health information. Staff need direction on credential management, account security, secure remote access, approved communication channels, device security, removable media controls, and secure disposal practices.
Training needs to address incident reporting and escalation. Staff need direction on recognizing and reporting suspected unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of protected health information, suspected security incidents, phishing attempts, lost or stolen devices, misdirected communications, and improper system access.
Additional HIPAA Training For Business Associate Staff
Business Associate staff require training that reflects the Business Associate role and the limits imposed by Business Associate Agreements and subcontractor arrangements. Training should connect contract requirements to daily work practices, including how staff access client environments, how support activities are documented, and how protected health information is handled in ticketing systems, logs, and collaboration tools.
Training for Business Associates should address Business Associate Agreement limits on uses and disclosures. Staff need direction that protected health information use must align to contracted services, that access for troubleshooting must follow approved procedures, and that staff must avoid using protected health information in test environments or non-production tools unless organizational policy and client requirements authorize that activity.
Training for Business Associates should address multi-client environment controls. Staff need direction on preventing cross-client disclosure, maintaining segregation of client data, and using tenant isolation controls and access provisioning that match assigned client responsibilities. Staff also need direction on the prohibition of copying protected health information to personal accounts, personal devices, or unapproved storage locations.
Training for Business Associates should address subcontractor management. Staff need direction on engaging subcontractors only through approved workflows and ensuring written agreements apply required privacy and security obligations before any subcontractor creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information.
Training for Business Associates should address security incident and breach reporting duties. Staff need direction on internal reporting pathways that support timely notification to the HIPAA Covered Entity, including reporting facts known at the time of discovery, containment actions taken, and the locations and systems involved. Staff also need direction on the HIPAA Breach Notification Rule timeline that requires notification to the HIPAA Covered Entity without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 calendar days after discovery of a breach of unsecured protected health information.
Security Awareness Training Under The HIPAA Security Rule
Security awareness and training should include topics that address predictable threats to electronic protected health information. Training commonly addresses malware defense, phishing recognition and reporting, password management procedures, and procedures for reporting discrepancies and suspected unauthorized access attempts.
Security awareness training should reflect the organization’s risk analysis and the safeguards deployed in the environment. Training should reinforce the requirement to use approved systems and tools, follow access control processes, and report security concerns through the designated channel.
HIPAA Training Documentation and Record Retention
Organizations should maintain training documentation that supports internal governance and audit and enforcement requests. Documentation typically includes the learner’s name or identifier, training date, training title or module name, delivery method, and completion status.
Organizations must retain HIPAA-required documentation for at least six years from the date of creation or the date when the documentation last was in effect. Organizations should align training record retention with this requirement and with any applicable contractual and state law retention obligations.
Partnership with The HIPAA Journal Training
The HIPAA Journal Training is online, comprehensive, and suitable for onboarding and annual refresher training. Organizations using online training should pair it with organization-specific policies, procedures, role assignments, and incident reporting instructions so workforce members can follow the organization’s documented compliance processes.