End of Year HIPAA IT Checklist for Altamonte Springs Medical Offices

Medical and dental practices along State Road 436 and around Uptown Altamonte stay busy right up to the holidays. Patients rush to use benefits before the year ends, and January brings new insurance plans and new staff.

That makes December a smart month for a short IT checkup. None of the tasks below require new equipment. They are mostly about making sure your records, habits and paperwork match what HIPAA expects, so the new year starts on solid ground.

1. Update your security risk analysis

The HIPAA Security Rule requires every practice to complete a risk analysis, and most practices refresh it once a year. It does not need to be a thick binder. At its core, it answers three questions: where does patient information live, what could realistically go wrong and what are you doing about it.

Walk through your front desk, exam rooms, billing area and any remote work. Note every computer, tablet, phone and cloud service that touches patient records. If your last risk analysis is more than a year old, or you changed EHR systems, start here. It is also the first document an auditor will ask to see.

2. Confirm your business associate agreements

Any vendor that handles patient information on your behalf should have a signed business associate agreement on file. That includes your IT provider, your EHR vendor, your billing service, your answering service and any cloud storage you use for patient documents.

Pull the list together and check that each agreement is signed and current. If a vendor will not sign one, that is a sign to talk about alternatives.

3. Practice your EHR downtime procedure

Picture 9 AM on a Monday. The waiting room is full and the EHR will not load, or the internet is down. What does the front desk do?

Write the steps down in plain language: how to check patients in on paper, where the printed schedule lives, who calls the vendor and how notes get entered once systems are back. Print it, keep it at the front desk and run a 15 minute drill with your team. Practices that practice this barely miss a beat when it really happens.

4. Review who can see what

Staff roles change over a year. A medical assistant moves to billing, a front desk lead takes on scheduling for a second provider, a part time employee leaves. Each change should come with a quick look at what that person can open.

Make sure each person can reach only the patient records they need for their job, and remove access for anyone who has left. Replace any shared logins at the front desk with individual ones, so your records always show who viewed what.

5. Keep an eye on proposed HIPAA changes

HHS published proposed updates to the HIPAA Security Rule in January 2025. The proposal includes stronger expectations around a second login step and encryption for patient data. It is still a proposal, not current law, and the final version may look different.

Many of the proposed changes are simply good practice, though. Turning on a second login step for email and your EHR now protects your practice today and puts you ahead if the rule is finalized.

A calmer January

Finishing these five items gives your practice a current risk analysis, signed agreements, a tested plan for downtime and clean access lists. That is a strong position to start the year in, and it makes conversations with auditors, insurers and partners much easier.

Solvera Tech supports medical, dental and professional offices in Altamonte Springs from our Orlando office, and we sign a BAA with every healthcare client. See IT support for Altamonte Springs offices or book a free Tech & Security Blueprint.

This post is general information, not legal advice.