Secured Document Destruction

HIPAA requires offices to shred PHI documents so they are unreadable.

This depends on the type of document that needs to be shredded. For instance, tax information should be kept for 7 years prior to shredding. Customer contact information should be shredded within 30 days.

Typically 32-gallon consoles are stored around the office under desks or out in the open. The larger 95-gallon consoles are usually left in a garage or back of building area.

Although it may seem less expensive to shred documents in-house. It can be extremely time consuming for your staff members to individually place papers into a shred machine. This ends up costing many companies more money than actually paying a on-site shred service to come to their door and shred all their paper in minutes.

HIPAA doesn't just relate to the way you share and store data. It specifically covers the destruction of protected health information (PHI). While most of the emphasis is on the destruction of electronic records, healthcare organizations with paper records need to be careful, too.

As a covered entity, you must be careful of the way you destroy data. The HIPAA Security Rule demands that you use the appropriate safeguards to protect the privacy of PHI, even as it leaves your door.

HIPAA doesn't explicitly cover shredding. A control + F search of the law won't bring up any results. However, HIPAA doesn't cover best practices. It asks you to take reasonable and appropriate action. And by using shredding, you introduce the process into the legislation on your own.

Some different names for document shredding are:

• Paper Shredding
• Document Destruction
• Secured Document Destruction
• Document Shredding
• Sensitive Material Removal

Types of information that facilities must have shredded: any documents that contain individually identifiable health information.

• • Patient Medical Records
  • Hard drives
  • Tapes
  • X-ray films
  • Birth Dates
  • Geographic Identifiers
  • Phone Numbers
  • Fax Numbers
  • Email Addresses
  • Medical Record Numbers
  • Biometric Identifiers
  • Photos of Faces
  • Account Numbers
  • Certificate/License Numbers
  • Vehicle Identifiers and License Plate Numbers
  • Device Identifiers and Serial Numbers
  • Web URLs
  • IP Addresses
  • Unique Identifying Numbers
  • Social Security Numbers

Superior Can Help With Secured Document Shredding

Need to see it happen? We offer on-site shredding for facilities that want to witness their documents destroyed. We send a shred truck to your location and shred everything on the spot, then provide a certificate of destruction. Prefer off-site pickup and destruction? We handle that on a schedule that fits your office, too.

We know that proper paper waste removal is just as important as medical waste removal. That is why we have partnered with another local company that shares the same values we hold. If you need medical shredding services at your healthcare facility, Superior can get it done. Contact us today for a quote.