HIPAA Compliance Risk Analysis

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.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-HIPAA, was introduced in Congress as the Kennedy-Kassebaum Bill and later passed in 1996. Before HIPAA, there was no federal standardization when it came to health care programs and information, and it was up to the state to create these rules and regulations. The rules and regulations were also fragmented among government agencies. Since there was no standard authority to combat against fraud and abuse in state and federal health care programs, it became a major issue that could not be ignored. For this reason, HIPAA was created with the objective to provide provisions for the prevention of fraud and abuse, and to ensure that individuals would be able to maintain their health insurance between

According to Furrow et al. (2013), when healthcare organizations and providers fail to comply with HIPAA rules it can result in civil and criminal penalties. The AARA created a structure of four tiers of civil penalties for HIPAA violations, which the Secretary of the DHHS has discretion in determining the penalty. For example, tier 1 penalties apply to violations due to reasonable cause and not due to willful neglect. In other words, the healthcare organization is unaware of the HIPAA violation.

HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and it was passed with broad bipartisan congressional support in 1996. At the time the legislation was enacted, most behavioral health and human service providers were focused on three important provisions of HIPAA. The reason why HIPPA mandate that providers and contractors use the approve coded is because the health care industry deals with lot of sensitive client information in the healthcare field. Consumer population is highly sensitive about the release of information. The nature of most of our consumers ' problems lends itself to suspicion and a need for verification has to be done.

The Administrative Simplification Subsection of HIPAA included four specific components. These components include two specific elements which relate directly to business associates of covered entities, the Privacy Rule and Security Rule (Gartee, 2011). The Privacy Rule required that covered entities obtain from their business associates assurance that they will not disclose protected health information for reasons other than those designed to ensure that the covered entities practices are maintained or improved upon (“Business Associates”, n.d.). The Security Rule of the subsection outlines that covered entities must have in place “physical safeguards” which include physical security measures related to information storage and exchanges as

There have been many instances of unauthorized viewing of medical records. Unauthorized viewing of patient records is a violation HIPAA. The HIPAA Privacy Rule requires that “protected health information should not be used or disclosed when it is not necessary to satisfy a particular purpose or carry out a function” (Health and Human Services.gov). The case study in which Joe, a staff member accessed medical information after he was allowed access to the hospital to change lightbulbs and the case study in which the daughter of a nurse accessed medical information as a result of the mother leaving the computer unlocked and unattended, are HIPAA violations (i.e both people accessed the medical information illegally). Joe was tasked with changing a lightbulb, but was curious about a patient he knew on a personal level, his neighbor.

The HIPAA rule is built to protect and prevent disclosing individuals’, and consumers’ identifiable health care information unlawfully and without getting authority from the concern parties. If someone break the law, individuals are subject to civil penalties of $100 on each violation but the penalty can accumulates based on numbers of violations; the standard maximum limit of civil penalties is $25,000 each person, each year (HIPAA Privacy Rule – What Employers Need to Know, n. d.). As per stacking rules, if a person violated two HIPAA standards, the penalty can be $50,000; Similarly, the criminal penalties subject to maximum of $ 250,000 and ten years in prison can be imposed to those individuals and parties who disclosed protected information

A situation I have had involving HIPPA was when I turned 18 I hadn 't thought and tried to have my mom call my doctor for some reason. When she did they told her that she couldn 't do anything because I was now 18 and I hadn 't signed any waivers for her to access to my medical records. At the time it was a burden but now learning more about HIPPA I realize that it is in place to keep our medical records safe.   Although I have have never had a direct at of malpractice done to myself, I have heard many stories of malpractice.

Case Study #1 Case 1: In the past, Monsanto has had many ethical issues like high performance standards that can cause employees to make unethical and illegal decisions and not owning up to hazards around them. However, Monsanto has been striving to enforce their code of ethics and has spent more time trying to become more socially responsible to the environment. For Monsanto to create an ethical culture, he would have to be proactive in anticipating, planning and acting to avoid potential ethical crisis’ (Thorne, Ferrell, & Ferrell, 2008).

Although Rite Aid have broken many privacy laws according to HIPAA the primary concern regarding security is that the violation of information policies and procedures ensured that they were not within compliance. “Charles Sabatino (2016) reports Health care practitioners have a duty to take reasonable steps to keep personal medical information confidential consistent with the person's preferences. For example, doctor-patient medical discussions should generally occur in private and a patient might prefer that the doctor call their cell phone rather than home. Even well-meaning family members are not necessarily allowed to have information about a loved one's medical condition.” Due to the Sum of $1 million that Rite Aid has to pay based on

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

Recognizing, acknowledging, and understanding medication safety is important when administering medications. Understanding which medications are high-risk ones, being familiar with the medications being given, remembering the five most important rights when administering medications, communicating clearly, developing checking habits, and reporting the medication errors will lead to safe outcomes for the residents. However, errors do occur from a lack of experience, rushing, distractions, fatigue, doing too many things at once, not double checking, poor communication, and lack of team work. It is not only the staff that commit errors, but also the work environment that contributes to the medication error. Two examples are poor reporting systems