iSpeechPathology.com – Call us: 800-242-5183
Aya Education - February 2024

HIPAA and Telepractice

K. Todd Houston, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS, Cert AVT

August 21, 2014

Share:

Question

How does HIPAA impact telepractice?

Answer

AS more and more speech-language pathologists are delivering services via telepractice, we have to make sure that the same level of confidentiality is being maintained during telepractice sessions as what we would do in person.  However, clinicians doing telepractice interpret HIPAA by looking only at the privacy rules and may not necessarily be thinking about security rules that are a part of HIPAA.  We want to make sure everything is in place so that whenever we interact with the patient through a telepractice delivery system, we are adhering to all of the privacy standards that we would adhere to in any other situation. 

One of the security risks that come up is the location of the clinician when providing services.  In your facility, you can create a very secure connection with your patient.  Some of clinicians may be doing telepractice and connecting to the patient's home.  The connection going in and out of the patient’s home is one you do not have control over, but you have to make sure that what you do on your end is at a level that will maintain confidentiality with that patient. You want to make sure that you are using some very specific software programs for telepractice.  These are not the free ones. Antivirus, firewalls, etc. need to be in place to make sure that it remains secure and confidential. 

The biggest issue that sometimes occurs is not necessarily the actual session itself that is being provided; but if you maintain a recording of the session and want to share that with other providers, you could be getting into an interesting situation.  You have to be extremely careful about this, because you are sharing a lot of information about the patient and what you did in terms of treatment.  If you have recordings of your telepractice sessions, make sure that data is secure, that it is on a server or computer that people do not have access to, and that it is password protected.  You have to think through how you are going to store those sessions to make sure there are no breaches with that information.

Dr. K. Todd Houston is an Associate Professor in the School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at The University of Akron. His primary areas of research include spoken language acquisition in children with hearing loss, strategies for enhancing parent engagement in the intervention process, Auditory-Verbal Therapy, cochlear implantation in children and adults, adult aural rehabilitation, and telepractice.


k todd houston

K. Todd Houston, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS, Cert AVT

Dr. K. Todd Houston is an Associate Professor in the School of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at The University of Akron. His primary areas of research include spoken language acquisition in children with hearing loss, strategies for enhancing parent engagement in the intervention process, Auditory-Verbal Therapy, cochlear implantation in children and adults, adult aural rehabilitation, and telepractice. He directs the Telepractice and eLearning Laboratory (TeLL), an initiative to evaluate clinical practices in the area of distance service delivery in Speech-Language Pathology. Dr. Houston also is the author of Telepractice in Speech-Language Pathology (2014, Plural Publishing), one the first texts in the field addressing the topic of telepractice as a service delivery model. 


Related Courses

Everyday Cybersecurity Best Practices for SLPs
Presented by Josiah Dykstra, PhD
Video

Presenter

Josiah Dykstra, PhD
Course: #9979Level: Introductory1 Hour
  'Very practical and necessary information'   Read Reviews
This course covers practical steps and cybersecurity best practices to help protect professionals as well as their patients’ protected health information. Recognizing malicious emails and websites, selecting strong passwords, protecting smartphones, and securing sensitive data are discussed.

20Q: Infection Control Strategies for SLPs
Presented by A.U. Bankaitis Smith, PhD
Text

Presenter

A.U. Bankaitis Smith, PhD
Course: #9729Level: Intermediate1 Hour
  'difficult reading and text organization was difficult'   Read Reviews
Speech-language pathologists are expected by policy authorities to apply appropriate measures to protect patients, co-workers and themselves in clinical situations that may expose individuals to infectious microbes. This article provides practical guidelines for implementing infection control principles within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, including discussion of personal protective equipment (PPE) and disinfecting and cleaning products.

Understanding Mental Health in Older Adults
Presented by Gabrielle Juliano-Villani, LCSW
Video

Presenter

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani, LCSW
Course: #10246Level: Introductory1 Hour
  'Important topic to learn more about in our field'   Read Reviews
Mental health issues concerning older adults are discussed in this course. Topics include the intersection between mental and physical health, symptoms of common mental health disorders in this population, and referral criteria.

Assessment of School-Age Clients through Telepractice
Presented by William Bolden, MA III, CCC-SLP
Video

Presenter

William Bolden, MA III, CCC-SLP
Course: #9740Level: Introductory1.5 Hours
  'Very practical!'   Read Reviews
This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Many SLPs may feel uneasy when beginning to assess clients remotely. This course provides practical information on how to ethically and reliably assess school-age clients via telepractice, accommodate/modify assessments as needed, and report assessment results.

Social Work with Adults: An Overview for SLPs
Presented by Gabrielle Juliano-Villani, LCSW
Video

Presenter

Gabrielle Juliano-Villani, LCSW
Course: #10003Level: Introductory1 Hour
  'Great course! Excellent and detailed information presented'   Read Reviews
This course provides an overview of social work as a profession, including the different settings and roles in which social workers are employed. It discusses best practices for how SLPs can collaborate with social workers when working with adult clients.