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A Guide to HIPAA-Compliant Document Shredding

2/15/2019

We’re used to hearing horror stories about personal information being hacked or misused online by big data companies. This has triggered an important global dialogue about personal privacy, especially in the US. It may not regularly occur to us, but one area where privacy protection is especially crucial is within the medical industry. Think about it - your doctor handles a lot of sensitive information about you and your health. What regulations are in place to make sure you remain protected? How should sensitive documents be handled?

What Is HIPAA Compliance?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 was enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The act was created to standardize how healthcare information is handled. The most important part regulates how personally identifiable information maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft.

Why is HIPAA important?
HIPAA is important because individual health information is some of the most sensitive and personal, making it an ideal target for identity thieves. HIPAA also gives patients increased control on who can view and access their health information. By giving patients more control over their own personal privacy, it created a streamlined way for them to take their medical records to new providers, resulting in fewer repeated tests and more informed medical decisions.

What happens if a HIPAA violation occurs?
The criminal penalties for HIPAA violations can be severe. Maximum penalties can reach fines of up to $250,000 and a prison term of up to 1 year. These heavy penalties ensure that all parties in the healthcare industry take the regulations seriously. As a result, the majority of respectable healthcare professionals go to great lengths to make sure they are in compliance.

How can I make sure my documents are HIPAA compliant?
It’s extremely important to make sure sensitive medical documents are securely stored and properly disposed of to avoid heavy fines and penalties. R4 offers Healthcare Industry Document Management services designed to take the worry and liability out of storing sensitive information to make sure clients are compliant. Additionally, we offer shredding services that ensure sensitive information is properly destroyed. If you have digital sensitive information on a computer that no longer is useful, we also offer state of the art hard drive destruction services.

Remaining HIPAA compliant is extremely important not only from an ethical standpoint but also from a fiscal standpoint -- high fines and jail time. R4 services can help you remain 100% compliant and take the worry out of your medical practice.

R4 Services' Sustainability Report 2018

1/7/2019

The results are in!

The R4 Services Green Initiative has been very effective this past year. By securely destroying your documents with us, who then recycles the materials, you have made a difference in saving our environment. Thank you for your continued business and your support. Together we can make a difference.

But don't just take our word for it, here are the numbers!

2018 Blog Posts In Review

12/19/2018

It's hard to believe that the year 2018 is already over! As brought in the new year, we'd like to reflect a bit on some of our favorite blogs that were posted in 2018. It was certainly a year that had a major focus on cyber security and keeping data safe. This was partly in reaction to the influx of security breaches in 2017. So without further ado, here's the list of our top 5 most useful blogs this year.

#5: Why You Should Shred Your Hard Drives (June, 2018)
Do you have old information stored on old computers and hard drives? Well, this blog covers the reasons why that info might be at risk and how R4 Services' state-of-the-art hard drive shredder can thoroughly and discreetly dispose of your hard drives. We'll turn your drives into bits of metal from which no data will be recoverable.

#4: Healthcare Document Management (July, 2018)
Effective document management is crucial to stay organized, no matter what industry you're in. But many might not consider how important it is for medical organizations to stay keep the business running smoothly while remaining HIPAA compliant. In this blog, we stress the importance of document destruction, storage and mobile access for medical professionals.

#3: Documents You Should Shred But Probably Aren't (September, 2018)
There are old documents that you don't need anymore in your file cabinet. They are opening you up to legal liabilities and you may not even know it. Read this post to find out the culprits and how you can get rid of them!

#2: Data Breach Statistics in the U.S. (July, 2018)
Just how many data breaches happen each year, each month, or even each day in the United States? The year 2017 saw an 88% increase in the number of data breaches from the previous year, and the average cost of a data breach to any business is over $7 million. Read all about the largest data breaches and some essential breach statistics in the US.

#1: What You Need to Know About GDPR (May, 2018)
And finally, the number one blog post -- drumroll please. GDPR! In May of 2018, the EU passed sweeping privacy laws called the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) that protect consumers from various aspects of corporate data collection. "Why should I care? I don't live in the EU." you may ask, but these laws apply to all residents of the EU, even if your company is based elsewhere. So your business, even if it's in the US, is subject to hefty fines if it violates the privacy laws of customers in the EU. Read all about what you need to know in the post.

3 Ways To Keep Your Documents Safe During The Holidays

12/10/2018

With the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, employees are often rushing to get work done before they take time off until the new year. Some employees may even take some work home with them, which may sound great from the perspective of being productive, but it may actually leave your company open to liabilities and security threats if the proper precautions are not taken. This holiday season, take some extra time to do things properly to protect your business from cyber threats.

Implement tighter security - When you use R4's storage services, you're able to access all of your documents online via a secure web portal. By implementing more advanced security protocols, you'll be able to keep increased productivity and eliminate liability. These features include: two-factor authentication, domain and IP-based access, VPN and SSL deployment.
Shred old documents - One of the safest ways to ensure that your sensitive info can't be stolen is to get rid of it entirely. That is, of course, assuming those documents aren't necessary to have on-hand anymore. R4 Services will help you do a holiday document purge by picking up your old documents and shredding them discreetly at our facilities. With our state-of-the-art hard drive and paper shredders, we're ready to take on a variety of documents and mediums including but not limited to tapes of all sizes, disks, cartridges, x-rays, hard drives, monitors and film.
Utilize secure vault storage - Do you have documents that you need to keep but don't need to access immediately? We can safely store any of your documents for you, whether they be:
- Paintings
- Archival documents
- Books
- Photography
- Business-critical documents such as disaster recovery plans

Our vault storage services ensure that your data is completely secure and safe. Our facilities adhere to strict fire resistant construction standards, are equipped with an advanced fire suppression system, are climate controlled and have backup generators in case of power outages.

2017 saw an 88% increase in the number of data breaches throughout the year, when compared to 2016. With cybersecurity becoming a main concern for businesses in the modern digital age, it's important to take steps to ensure you are safe from liability. Call R4 Services today to find out how we can help you. Happy holidays!

Go Green And Protect Data With A Hard Drive Destruction Service

12/3/2018

If you've recently upgraded your office's technology, you might be wondering what to do with your old computers, electronics and hard drives. Tossing them in the trash or taking them to the dump isn't just wasteful and harmful to the environment, it also opens you up to liabilities and security risks. More than likely, you have gigabytes of personal, sensitive information stored on those drives about employees, customers, your business, its practices, financial information and more. If that data gets in the wrong hands, it can cost you your business -- or at the very least, customer trust.

That's why it's important to fully destroy your hard drives to the point of no return -- so no data can be retrieved from them. In 2017 alone, data breaches were responsible for 158 million Social Security Numbers being compromised. Now, it's not guaranteed that throwing your hard drives in the trash will lead to stolen identities, but minimizing those risks for a low price is surely in your best interests. That's why Chicago's very own R4 Services will help you to develop a comprehensive hard drive destruction plan that best suits your company's needs.

Customize Your Chicago Hard Drive Destruction Program With R4
Here's how it works: you gather up all of your old hard drives that need to be destroyed. We then confidentially collect them from your place of business and transport them to our secure facility, where we shred them via our state-of-the-art hard drive shredding machine. Catch a preview of it in action here. As you can see, thieves won't be getting SSNs off of those metal bits!

Once we collect the drives from your office, a receipt of all items received will be issued on the spot. After we confidentially shred the materials under the supervision of insured employees, we issue a Certificate of Destruction upon completion of the destruction process. R4 Services will also work with you to ensure we follow any compliance requirements your industry or business may have.

The Key Is Confidentiality
Security is our top priority, which is why we have 24/7/365 closed circuit surveillance and monitored doors. You may also witness the destruction service in action either from your computer screen or in person at our facility.

So if you're looking to properly dispose of all your old hard drives and other technology, shred them and recycle them properly with R4 Services. Get in touch today or call 773-843-3915

Check Out Our Expanding Scanning Services

11/6/2018

Due to higher demand, we've added new staff to our team and added a brand-new, state-of-the-art scanner in order to expand our scanning services. We're more ready than ever to cater to all of your document management needs.

R4's document scanning and imaging services provide:

secure, efficient and immediate remote access to your documents
custom searches and viewing options
Notes, reminders and flags may be added to documents and saved

R4's document scanning and imaging services improve:

Company efficiency and workflow
Document accessibility and ease of use
Centralized storage to allow document access from any location

Let us be your information managers!

Say hello to two of our new scanning services employees. Welcome, Patty and Jaquita, to the R4 Services team! We're thrilled to have you!

Why Use R4 Services Scanning Services?

Record retrieval from your desktop
Eliminate the concern associated with locating original documents
Direct fax capability
Direct email capability
Improved response time - improving customer service
Simultaneous access for multi-user, highly active document types
Fully HIPAA compliant

How Scanning Services Can Help Your Small Business

10/23/2018

Running a small business is no easy task. Generally speaking, small businesses don't have a large amount of staff running the place, so employees take on a variety of roles that may not fit their expertise or job description. One big complaint we hear from many smaller companies is the inability to effectively stay organized -- or at least to affordably stay organized. A great way to start staying organized is by taking advantage of comprehensive and affordable imaging, scanning and indexing services.

Document Scanning Services in Chicago
Scanning and indexing all of your important business documents has a number of benefits to your small business. Companies are expected to be on-the-ball at all times and ready to tackle all of their tasks as efficiently as possible. By utilizing our scanning and indexing services, you'll be able to focus on the task at hand without worrying about juggling other, menial and organizational issues.You'll save time and money when you're not sifting through boxes of paperwork just to locate a couple of files.

By using our scanning and indexing services, you're able to:

Stay compliant with your industry's regulations
Rest easy knowing our methods are fully HIPAA-compliant
Have 24/7 access to your files
Access your files on-the-go with secure, mobile connection capabilities
Have backup copies of important files in case of disaster
Digitally make edits and notes on any document
Directly fax or email documents (with your notes)
Search for documents and files to pull them up instantly and digitally, eliminating time spent looking for hard copies
Improve your business' workflow and efficiency

Small businesses have it hard enough trying to develop and grow. They don't have time to sweat the small stuff -- so let us manage your documents, leaving you free to do what it takes to succeed. If you're ready to take the next step to becoming a more organized organization, get in touch. We'll work with you to create a full, comprehensive and affordable document scanning plan that best suits your needs and won't interfere with your day-to-day business. Call today!

How To Keep Your Office Organized

9/26/2018

Sometimes keeping your workspace organized and decluttered takes a back seat to other, more pressing work. But a clean office has many benefits: it encourages productivity, clears up some extra real estate for other employees, makes great first impressions on visitors, and much more. It's all too easy for papers and boxes of files to start piling up, especially in document-heavy professional fields such as the accounting, healthcare, banking and legal industries. Staying on top of your game when it comes to clearing out your office is important -- it's easier to stay organized than it is to reorganize. Here are some helpful tips to get you started.

Scan and index your important files
By scanning and indexing your important documents, you're not only creating backups of the hard copies, you're digitizing them for maximized accessibility. Gone and forgotten are the days of sifting through boxes and digging through file cabinets. With your digital documents, you can pull up any file from any computer with a web browser. Through a secure connection, you can easily search for files, pull them up, make notes on them and directly print, email and fax. All of our digital scanning, indexing and mobile access software are fully HIPAA-compliant.

Get rid of unnecessary files
After scanning and indexing, you might not need hard copies anymore, so there are a few options for you. The first option is to destroy them. We have discussed the importance of maintaining a rigid retention schedule many times in the past, and it still holds true for nearly every industry. Outdated medical records with sensitive patient information, old financial statements and tax info (including SSNs) may be unnecessary to keep around the office. Here's a list of documents you should destroy, but probably aren't. Keeping hard copies of outdated files doesn't just clutter your physical office space, it opens you up to legal liabilities and tax audits. R4 Services has the state-of-the-art document destruction equipment that can securely and confidentially destroy any media type from paper, film, tapes, monitors, disks, x-rays and hard drives.
Store your documents offsite
Perhaps you're looking to clear some space but don't need or want to destroy those mountains of paperwork. Whether it's for sentimental value or to remain legally compliant, you might need to keep those documents -- yet, you don't want it taking up your real estate. In that case, consider storing your documents off site via vault services. It guarantees to keep your records accessible 24/7 for any media type: computer tapes, disks, video/audio recordings, microfilm, microfiche, x-rays. We can also provide climate-controlled storage space for older, sensitive things such as paintings, archival documents, books, photography, and business-critical documents (eg. disaster recovery plans).

Any and all of these methods work for any industry from medical, legal, education and more. These best-practices will help to keep your business organized to maximize efficiency, while keeping a more breathable and uncluttered office space. To find out more on how we can help you manage every aspect of your business' documents, get in touch today!

Documents You Should Shred But Probably Aren't

9/18/2018

Developing a document retention schedule is crucial to staying compliant with security best-practices and laws and regulations. By using a professional document shredding service such as R4 Services, you can rest assured knowing that state-of-the-art machinery will destroy every bit of information, converting mountains of paperwork into tiny bits of paper, while keeping you safe from liabilities. By thoroughly shredding outdated documents containing financial information, personal info (such as your SSN), any sort of account info, etc. you're protecting yourself and your business from identity theft, legal liabilities and other avoidable headaches. Even some documents, that you don't think should be shredded, should be! This includes junk mail and receipts.

There are many types of documents that all have extremely sensitive information on them that need to be periodically destroyed. But on the other hand, there are some documents that you should keep forever for legal reasons. This all sounds fine and dandy, but when you get right down to it, how do you know: should it stay or should it go?

Documents to Destroy

There are some documents that solely exist to provide personal info, but they can be disposed of after a certain length of time. These documents include:

Boarding passes (immediately)
Resumes/hiring documents (if no longer needed)
Shipping labels (immediately)
Bank statements (after 1 year)
Pay stubs (after 1 year)
Bills (after 1 year)
Undisputed, paid medical bills (after 1 year)
Sales receipts (immediately)
Paid utility bills and credit statements (immediately)
Expired warranties (immediately)
Tax receipts (after 7 years)
W-2s (after 7 years)

Documents to Keep

On the other hand, some documents, both personal and business, should be kept forever. Lock them up in a safe place so you can refer to them if you ever need to. These are documents with a lot of personal identity info that will stay relevant as long as you live.

Tax documents
Birth and death certificates
Pension plans
Business licenses
Property deeds (as long as you own it)
Mortgage documents
Social security cards/info
Vehicle titles (as long as you own it)
Loan documents
Insurance policies
IDs and passports
Wills, living wills, power of attorney documents
Marriage and divorce paperwork

Whether your business needs documents stored or shredded, R4 Services will provide you with unparalleled, discreet and confidential services for all of your document needs. Our state-of-the-art document and hard drive shredders allow us to destroy a wide variety of data mediums and our 24-hour secure vault services will keep your most sensitive information in-tact and available the next time you need it.

Document Management for Realtors

8/20/2018

If it's your job to find people their dream home, then there's no doubt that you go through mountains of paperwork every day. Storing files such as home contracts, legal forms, property deeds, purchase offers, repair agreements, agency relationship disclosures -- and that's barely even the tip of the iceberg. To top it all off, in order to stay compliant with various tax and other record keeping laws, realtors and real estate agents must keep copies of most documents for at least 5 years or even 10 years for some documents. Once you start to sell even a few homes, that proverbial iceberg really starts to manifest and it can sometimes feel like you're drowning in paperwork. But we won't let that iceberg sink your ship! It's crucial for realtors to have a reliable document management system by their side in order to make records storage easy, keep their records accessible and make it a breeze to stay compliant with all the rules and regulations that come with the territory.

Storing Your Real Estate Records

Selling homes isn't a walk in the park. Each property comes with its own mountain of paperwork to sift through, organize, update, sign and eventually store. This can take up a lot of...real estate in an office and most realtors don't have that kind of space. Rifling through cabinets full of papers and finding the right one(s) for the task at hand takes loads of time and hinders a realtor's ability to perform their job quickly and efficiently.

By scanning, imaging and indexing them and taking advantage of R4 Services' vault storage options, realtors' jobs just got a whole lot easier. We can store any type of physical document in our storage facility that is monitored 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Our scanning, imaging and indexing services will help you to digitize your important materials so you can securely access them online. Our web service allows you to quickly search, pull, edit and directly email/fax any document so you're not wasting precious time on bookkeeping. As an added bonus, it will declutter some your office -- a clear space for a clear mind.

Online Access to Your Realtor Documents

Once you scan your crucial documents into our web system, you'll have enhanced security and 24-hour access to any of your documents. Here are just a few perks of our online system:

Access your files remotely from any web browser.
Implement security features for all of your files including:
- Two-factor authentication
- Domain- and IP Address-based limitations
- SSL connection
- Optional VPN (Virtual Private Network) services
Perform your own data entry, both at the box and file level.
Request/retrieve boxes and files.
Request pickups and returns.
Create custom searches and queries using the integrated query builder (Boolean logic) and export results in seven different file formats for use at your own PC.
Process items for destruction.
Process items for permanent withdrawal.

Realtor Document Retention Schedule: Stay Compliant

After your office space is cleared out, you've got all your necessary files stored externally and you can access your documents from anywhere while on-the-go, you can finally forget about those mountains of paperwork, right? Right?! Sorry, wrong. While you may need to keep most documents in your possession for 5-10 years, that doesn't mean you need to keep them forever. In fact, keeping documents past their retention date can open you up to legal liabilities.
That's why we will work with your company to develop a fully comprehensive and compliant document retention schedule; and when it's time to finally purge those old docs, we've got you covered. Our document shredding services and state-of-the-art hard drive destruction services will let you confidentially dispose of virtually any type of document. We can destroy:

Hard Drives
Paper
X-Rays
Film
Monitors
Tapes
Disks of all sizes

All of these and more will be discreetly destroyed either at our facilities or yours -- whichever is more convenient for you.
So when it comes to your real estate business, stop settling for less. Let us take over the dirty work of storing and organizing your files so you can do what matters most: making people happy by finding their home. If you have any questions about any of our services, get in touch today!