For the person who has to sign, business associate is a phrase that gets searched by two people: the one who wants a definition for a memo and the one who has to sign an attestation about it next quarter. This page is written for the second. For a regulated small business, business associate comes down to a record and a set of figures: the record is the obligations, the controls, the evidence, the incidents, the cases and the attestations, kept with an owner, a date and a status; the figures are the evidence load that record puts on its reviewers, the days an audit of it takes, the gaps an audit will find and what they cost, the incidents and cases it produces, and the training it requires. The sections below explain business associate in those terms, say what it is not, and show where the free sheets on this site work each figure from the program's own numbers with no account.
What business associate means in practice
For a regulated small business, it means being able to show, for each obligation, which control satisfies it, what evidence proves the control operated, who reviewed the evidence and who attested to the result. The record is the obligations, the controls, the evidence, the incidents, the cases and the attestations. The regulator's own material, linked below, says what the obligations are; this site publishes none of that and no legal advice. What it publishes is the arithmetic: the obligations register sheet turns the count of obligations, controls and evidence items into reviewer hours and the months to a full attestation.
Why the search is business associate
The words in business associate are the words a regulated small business uses when the obligation has a name and the program does not yet have a number. The name is the regulator's, linked below; the number is the program's own, and it is the count of obligations, controls and evidence items behind regulatory compliance turned into reviewer hours on the obligations register sheet and into audit days on the audit scope sheet. A program that searches business associate and comes away with those two figures has done the first day of the work, and the paid plan on this site keeps what follows: the record, with owners, dates and the attestation that closes each period.
What is a business associate agreement, and what the rule requires in it
It is the written contract in which one organization gives another satisfactory assurances that protected health information it handles on that organization's behalf will be safeguarded. The rule requires the documentation rather than a particular form, and what the document has to establish is the permitted uses and disclosures, the safeguards, the duty to report incidents and breaches, the flow down to subcontractors, what happens to the information at termination, and the right to audit or obtain records. Signing one does not make either party compliant. It moves a named set of duties onto the associate and creates the record that shows the covered entity asked.
What business associate is not
It is not a certificate, a piece of software or a consultant's memo, although all three are sold under the name. It is a record and the figures that follow from it, kept by the business that owes the obligations. The guide this page supports covers choosing among regulatory compliance consulting firms, the help a small business buys around that record. Attestvio Pro keeps the record at one flat price; the sheets are free with no account.
The figures behind business associate
Evidence items and reviewer hours; audit samples, days and coverage; expected gaps, remediation hours and cost; incident hours; case backlog months; training seats outstanding. Each is a free sheet on this site and each computes from the program's own inputs. For regulatory compliance the sheet to start with is the obligations register sheet, which works the figure a regulated small business is examined on first. A program that knows those numbers has stopped estimating its own compliance.
Questions people ask about business associate
What is business associate?
For a regulated small business: keeping the obligations, the controls, the evidence, the incidents, the cases and the attestations as a record with an owner, a date and a status, and being able to show for each obligation the control, the evidence and the attestation. The regulator's own material, linked below, defines the obligations; the free sheets on this site work the arithmetic.
Who is responsible for business associate in a small business?
The compliance officer, or the owner wearing that hat, who signs the attestation. The sheets on this site are written for that person and need no account.
Does Attestvio make a business compliant with regulatory compliance?
No. The business meets the obligations; Attestvio keeps the record and works the figures, and publishes no rule and no advice. Counsel and the regulator's own material say what the obligations are.