The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was created to give the employer a limit to denying health insurance coverage to their employees when medical conditions are present (Flores, 2005, p. 1). The privacy rule, a rule that was developed to create a safe environment where confidential information is kept from sharing to irrelevant individuals, was also added to HIPAA by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officially naming it the HIPAA privacy rule. It was produced to protect important health information and how much of the information was required from patient treatments (Wimberley et al., 2005, p. 489). The individuals in the medical field that commit violations where confidential information …show more content…
According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), they committed about six years to developing and creating the guidelines to cover the concepts in clear and detailed rules which made it 1,500 pages long (McDonald, 2009, p. 447). Not only that, but in D. S. Friedman’s own research, he points out that taking a test to review the regulations to the HIPAA privacy rule is expensive. It requires about 26,000 faculty to get together and $2 million to be spent annually to create and pass a test over the understanding of the guidelines to the privacy rule (2006, p. 546). The HIPAA privacy rule also builds confusion and this affects the studies and projects that need to be made.
The nurses and faculty that violate the privacy rule will face severe consequences such as civil and criminal penalties. For example, when violations occur, $100 to $25,000 per year will need to be paid off depending on the situation. Not only that, but going to prison can also be added depending on what and how the information was released (Wimberley et al., 2005, 489). Taking the time to correctly deliver the process of not releasing confidential information is needed, so there wouldn’t be any consequences or violations to the privacy
With privacy being of the utmost importance within a medical practice, HIPAA compliance can be a significant legal issue when implementing the AHSI Project into production. HIPAA compliance is a very important legal issue that should be reviewed by the legal team on any project. Encryption is also important as a legal issue, if the software is not encrypted and patient information is not protected, it can be a HIPAA violation as privacy is. Trust as a legal issue involves HIPAA compliance as well as trust in the legal system that CareMount Medical
The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known as HIPAA has set a national standard for the handling of electronically stored medical records. Medical confidentiality protects conversations between a patient and his or her doctor from being used against the patient in court. It is a part of the rules of evidence in many common law jurisdictions. The penalties for violating HIPPA are based on the level of negligence and can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation or per record, with a maximum of $1.5 million per year. Violations can also carry criminal charges that can result in jail time.
The walls in the office of healthcare providers are made sound proof by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). Sound proof meaning that each patient’s healthcare information can only be shared between the provider and the patient; their information is required to remain confidential by law. In 1996, HIPPA was passed by congress; the act included regulations that would help to protect patient privacy and health information (Petersen, 2001). After reading the novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot one may be appalled and think that what occurs in the novel is a complete violation of HIPPA. But, the time frame needs to be taken into consideration.
To encourage this goal nonetheless, HIPAA included "Regulatory Simplification" arrangements that ordered the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to receive national models for the transmission and insurance of wellbeing data. The subsequent between the year 2003 and 2013
In 1996, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets security standards for safeguarding important patient health information that is being stored and maintained in analog and digital forms. As new technologies continue to facilitate the healthcare industry’s transition to paperless processes, health care providers, insurance companies, and other institutions are also growing increasingly dependent on electronic information systems to manage their HIPAA compliance programs. As a result, the safety and security of sensitive health data has become a major concern across the board. Security Risks and Challenges Today, health care professionals are using technology extensively in almost every aspect of the practice.
The focus of this paper will be geared toward the impact that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology have on the cost of health care. The regulations connected to HIPAA have an impact on cost through enforcement, noncompliance, and implementation. HIPAA is a vital tool in the protection of PHI of patients and the improvement of the Medicare and Medicaid programs (Cleverly). Trying to contribute to the improvement of Medicare alone can be a daunting and expensive task alone, but to add the addition of protecting the health records of millions of patients adds to the rising cost. Health Information Technology (HIT), aids in the enforcement of HIPAA and helps with billing patients accurately for services that they have received (Wizemann).
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in the year 1996. As a broad Congressional attempt at healthcare reform HIPAA was first introduced into Congress as the Kennedy-Kassebaum Bill named after two of its leading sponsors. The law has several different purposes that mainly focus on the protection of the healthcare provider and their patient depending on the circumstances and situations that may typically occur in a medical environment. The act itself was passed with two main objectives.
She was a respiratory therapist who worked at a 72-bed hospital in Oregon; Ohio called ProMedica Bay Park Hospital. She “was authorized to access individually identifiable health information and protected health information of certain respiratory patients,” not of other hospital patients (McGee, 2015). She had accessed practically 600 patients protected heath information (PHI), but it topped out at 596 patients. During May of 2014, “ProMedica began notifying the affected patients that their records were inappropriately accessed between April 1, 2013, and April 1, 2014,” many of whom were frightened and had felt uneasy thereafter (McGee, 2015). The situation was made aware to U.S Department of Health and Human Services, who has since then posted her case onto their “Wall of Shame.”
HIPAA is legislation that is mostly used in United States for the protection and privacy of the patient’s information. The medical information is protected by HIPAA whereby it ensures safe access to health and other personal information. HIPAA is therefore divided into five rules and regulations. There is private rule which ensures that all the information about individual’s health is highly protected. Private rule allows a good flow of health care information to ensure that an individual gets the best quality health care.
Nurses and doctors take the oath to protect the privacy and the confidentiality of patients. Patients and their medical conditions should not be discussed with anyone who is not treating the patient. Electronic health records are held to the same standards as nurses in that information is to be kept between, and shared only with the immediate care team. HIPAA violations are not taken lightly nor are the violation fines cheap. Depending on the violation, a hospital can be fined from $100 to $50,000 per violation (National Nurse 2011 p 23).
Information security considered as the procedure of protecting information against unauthorized access, disclosure, disruption, modification, use, or destroyed. In other word information security include defending information whatever the form this data may take. Although each organization employ information security to protect its secret data, but security breaches or identity theft may take place, security breach mean illegal access to defined categories of personal information. In other word it mean illegal access to personal information to use, destroy or amend it (Cate, 2008, p.4).
As records were shared electronically rules were implemented for clinicians to follow known as The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule ,2013). These rules were implemented for clinicians to protect the
The goals of HIPAA are to ensure medical coverage scope for workers and their families when they change or lose their employments and to secure wellbeing information trustworthiness, classification, and accessibility. The objectives are also to enhance our health care framework by making it more proficient, less difficult, and less
Ethics Assignment Introduction Confidentiality is an ethical value that remains deeply rooted in the nursing profession and has always been the cornerstone of the nurse-patient relationship. Since the days as nursing students, we were constantly reminded of the significance in maintaining patient’s confidentiality. The Oxford dictionary defines confidentiality as intended to be kept secret while the Cambridge dictionary defines it as the state of being secret.