HIPAA is an acronym for the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Commonly known as the health insurance act, HIPAA was enacted by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996. This act was put in place to regulate the privacy of patient health information, as well as to lower the cost of healthcare and shape the many pieces of the complicated US healthcare system. There are three main provisions of the Act: portability, tax, and administrative simplification provisions.
Before this law, patients in some states had no guaranteed privacy; consequently, their healthcare information could be accessed through various venues or even given to different individuals who requested it. Since HIPAA’s implementation, patients’ information has been more secure. However, as David Friedman notes in The American Journal of Ophthalmology (2006), “. . . privacy advocates and others have argued that the United States needs stronger privacy protections that are provided in the HIPAA Privacy Rule.” HIPAA my still have some diffculties , by with more guielines HIPAA would become more safer with all the transferring and disclosing.
How HIPAA Protects Patients
HIPPA was created to protect patients’ health information, especially how it gets used. This law implemented several protected healthcare information (PHI) changes, making specific standards to protect patient information. HIPAA continues to evolve in the health industries and in order to keep PHI protected HIPAA need to follow many guidelines. In order to comply with HIPAA law, there must be specific policies and procedures to properly control, disclose, and health information. Fitzmaurice, J.
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M first issued ”Traveling around the United States to inform audiences about Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the authors have experienced two predominant reactions: grave concern or abject ignorance. Among those who are aware of the legislation, strong opinions exist about the likelihood that the mandated standards will actually come to pass and the ability of the government and the health industry to monitor and enforce the ‘rules”. HIPAA protects any personal health information and how it can be used.
HIPAA patients can be assured that their information will not be accessible. Moreover, if their information is exposed, they can rest assured that the person who did not obey the HIPAA law would be fined and face the law. Patients having HIPAA by their side have more control over their personal healthcare information by setting boundaries on who can reach their information. Patients also must authorize any disclosure of their personal health information. When HIPAA was created, it put some specific rules of how, when, and what kind of information can be shared.“The privacy proposal, published on November 3, 1999, establishes federal protection for the confidentiality of individually identifiable health information. This protection is balanced with permitted disclosures of the information by covered entities under specified conditions, for such purposes as public health, research, and law enforcement. It gives individuals more control over the use of their personal health information and reaffirms the rights of patients to see, copy, and amend this information, and to learn of any disclosures.” Patients would learn how to contronl there personal privacy and how it can be protected with all personal health information. Some examples would be demographic, past or future physical or meal health or disease or condition.
How Healthcare Workers Can Violate Patient Privacy
There are many ways a healthcare worker can violate a patient’s privacy. From day one, those in the healthcare industry are trained about the consequences of not employing HIPAA in their daily jobs. Some examples for HIPAA violations are employees disclosing information by gossiping about patients with other employees or with friends and family members. Such violations can cause healthcare employees to lose their jobs or get fined. Thus, it is crucial for these workers to restrict conversations about patients and refrain from sharing patient information with friends and family. Another common HIPAA violation is lack of training new hires in the healthcare industry. Research participants are more willing to share personal information and more likely to truthfully answer research questions when they believe the privacy of their personal information is protected against inadvertent or unwanted disclosure. Furthermore, when researchers have access to accurate and comprehensive medical datasets, the results are more likely to be valid and meaningful.
Health Information Systems’ Measures to Protect Patients’ Privacy
Some measures health information systems should take to protect patient privacy are to have all patient medical records electronically encrypted, computers secured with passwords, and to have very effective antivirus software so no one can hack the computer systems. “The costs of protecting against security risks will probably rise with the size of the provider’s business. The privacy standard will clarify how individually identifiable health information is to be protected-the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of the covered entities. Obtaining these benefits, however, will require additional resources to reduce the risk of unwarranted disclosure. Many good protection practices can be found in the report of the National Research Council, ‘For the Record: Protecting Electronic Health Information.’ ”.
Special HIPAA Requirements for Disclosing Protected Health Information
When it comes to disclosing protected health information, HIPAA has certain requirements. The special requirements for disclosing PHI is to have permission in written authorization by the indvidual , that they give permission to diclourse or use there infomation. For example, when a patinet gets a treament in any healthcare facility , healthcare workers have disclsure to request health care proivder for the treatment. Another example would be to use or discolsosure to makr sn suthotization and this is also an requiremnt to of the HIPAA transaction rule and also HIPAA addministrative simplication rules. When it also comes to healthcare workers have the access to patient information to shared the information to theinsuraces to recieved treatment payment, so doctors, physicains and health care workers can receive proper payment from health plans.
References
- Fitzmaurice, J. M., & Rose, J. S. (2000). Cutting to the Chase: What Physician Executives Need
- to Know about HIPAA. Physician Executive, 26(3), 42. Retrieved from
- https://login.cccnj.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=
- true&db=bsh&AN=3098784&site=ehost-live
- Friedman DS. HIPAA and research: How have the first two years gone? American Journal of
- Ophthalmology. 2006;141(3):543–546. [PubMed].
- Judson,K,& Harrison C.(2016) Law & Ethics for health profession. New York, NY.McGraw-Hill
Special HIPPA Requiremnys For Dislosing. (2022, Mar 03). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/special-hippa-requiremnys-for-dislosing/
