Most people don’t often think about information theft. They take security measures for their home, their car, their money, but it doesn’t usually occur to people to safeguard their sensitive data until they themselves experience a breach. Information theft, however, has been on the rise for several years, and this kind of thief is only getting smarter. Every day, identities are stolen and people experience extreme inconvenience and loss due to confidential information ending up in the wrong hands, often through the improper disposal of things like paper records, hard drives, flash drives, etc. that contain personal data like social security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account information, and more. While this is bad enough for an individual to experience, it becomes a big ordeal when it happens to a business. Businesses that collect any kind of sensitive information from patients, consumers, clients, etc. are required to abide by federal and state requirements for how to appropriately dispose of printed and digital information. These businesses are held responsible for remaining in compliance and can be subject to a great deal of penalties if they don’t comply with the mandated procedure for document shredding.
Document Shredding for Businesses
For companies like medical offices, legal consultants, educational institutions, or essentially any business that collects consumer information or HR records, responsibly storing and disposing of others’ personal information comes with the territory. Not abiding by these laws makes companies subject to fines, lawsuits, and other penalties, as seen recently when a Kansas-based company were served a lawsuit for throwing documents away instead of shredding them. It’s possible a company could even be shut down, so it’s important for companies to always be educated on the latest document shredding requirements and follow them appropriately.
Medical Shredding Requirements
Under HIPAA, all healthcare providers must dispose of “protected health information” in a safe, responsible way. In the healthcare field, there are a lot of materials that contain this information, such as medical records, physician notes, prescription bottles, hospital ID bracelets, insurance information, and more. This material must be shredded to the point of being unreadable before thrown away to avoid penalties. At FileShred, we have a cost-effective, easy-to-use medical shredding program to help you stay in compliance.
Legal Shredding Requirements
When it’s time for no longer needed paper records or hard drives to be disposed of in legal offices, security is still top priority to avoid penalty. A Shred Ahead makes both one-time legal shredding and recurring shredding easy and convenient, helping you comply with legislative, regulatory, ad internal policy requirements. Our shredding programs are flexible and performed on site, so you can witness the shredding of your materials and speak with our trained shredding staff.
Penalties like this that hurt your company and ruin your reputation are easily avoided. Knowing what compliance regulations are in place for your company and following them are simple when you enlist a partner like A Shred Ahead. We’re sure to have a program that’s suitable for your needs, and we’re always up to date on the latest requirements for shredding sensitive data. To learn more or get started with our services, just call our team at (86) 261-9595.
