Floss & Finance works inside the financial records of dental practices every day, which means we work inside protected health information too. Patient names next to procedure codes, insurance claims tied to treatment dates, billing records that reveal who was seen and for what. We don't treat that as a side effect of the job. We treat it as the job.
We are a business associate, not a covered entity. Your practice holds the direct relationship with your patients, and we support the financial side of that relationship on your behalf. Under the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, that makes us contractually and legally responsible for how we handle any protected health information (PHI) we touch while doing your books.
Before we begin work with any dental practice, we sign a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). That agreement spells out what we can and can't do with PHI, how long we retain it, and what happens if a breach ever occurs. If your practice hasn't received one from us, ask, and we'll send it before any records change hands.
Our work touches PHI mainly through three channels: patient billing records, insurance claims data, and, where practices grant it, direct access to EHR systems for reconciliation purposes. We only pull what a given engagement requires. A practice that hands us claims exports doesn't also get its full patient chart opened up, because there's no bookkeeping reason for that access to exist.
Access to client files is restricted by role, so only the team members working on a given practice's books can open its records, and that access is logged.
Every team member completes HIPAA training, covering what counts as PHI, how to spot a phishing attempt aimed at financial data, and what to do the moment something looks wrong.
Breach notification under HIPAA isn't optional or informal, and neither is ours. If we ever discover that PHI in our care has been exposed, we notify the affected practice within 60 days of discovery, so your BAA should specify how quickly you'll notify the practice, which is typically faster than that outer limit, along with what happened, what data was involved, and what we're doing about it.
If you're a client, a patient of one of our client practices, or just curious about our privacy practices, reach out to
1-844-724-6849
support@flossandfinancellc.com
We'll answer directly, not with a form letter.