HIPAA Violations

These days it is very often that we heard about the hospital or medical practice was fined by the Health and the Human Service(HHS) due to the breach of the patient data. The security breaches of HIPAA mainly concerned with bad IT system design, bad user behavior, bad policies and bad operations. The US department of Health and Human Services(HHS) office for civil rights is trying to enforce HIPAA rules on hospital or medical practices to protect the patient data.

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). The person who violated HIPAA faces termination, revocation of license and/or jail time depending on the severity of the

It is worth to mention that HIPAA system breached because of some weakness which create a chance to breach it, such weakness according to Blumenthal (2007, p.2) represented with the following:

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 new HIPAA regulations also require each covered entity to take action to cure a breach or end a HIPAA violation by its business associate if the covered entity knows of a pattern or practice of its business associate that violates HIPAA. Covered entities will need to take a more active role in monitoring the activities of their business associates to cure breaches and end HIPAA

When entering a patient 's room, remember to close the door behind. If the door is left open, people walking by the room could possibly over hear the conversation. This could lead to a potential violation of HIPAA.

I agree with you, Dr. Zhou should have clear understanding of the HIPAA law, that is part of orientation practice for everyone who has access to patient information in the health care field. For Dr. Zhou to access the patient electronic records after his termination is very alarming. Everyone agrees that his plea deal of $2000 of fine and four months in prison was a lesser punishment than what he deserves. According the HIPAA law he could spent more than 10 years in prison for his action .What is your thoughts. Don’t you think UCLA should have been liable for failing to protect the patient information. While we can be pleased with many benefits that the electronic charting system and patient records keeping system have to offer, don’t you

If you work in healthcare, anywhere from a small medical office to a big hospital to an insurance company, you need to be in compliance with HIPAA. This is a long, complicated document and even big insurance companies struggle to keep the rules fresh in everyone 's mind and everyone on top of the most critical functions. Here are a few things to make sure you are doing right:

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. Private rule permits the access of the important information while keeping top security and privacy of treatment details of the patient. Security rule is also a rule found in HIPAA whereby it has administrative and technical guards which are responsible in ensuring that there is confidentiality and integrity of the information which is stored electronically. Security rule also requires physical safeguarding to offer

The ethical principles and theory above are examples of why the HIPAA regulations need to be amended to address the use of genetic information. If HIPAA regulations include the release of genetic information, the uniformed sister can be aware of her possible genetic mutation. However, with the current HIPAA policy Mrs. Smith’s genetic information can only be released with her consent. HIPAA 's current policy does not seem fair regarding the uninformed sister’s circumstances. Nurses and doctors are expected to care for their patients to the best of their ability, but with the current HIPAA policies their duties are

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

The purpose of the HIPAA transactions and code set standards is to simplify the processes and decrease the costs associated with payment for health care services. The transactions and code set standards apply to patient-identifiable health information transmitted electronically. Physician practices will continue to be able to submit paper claims. When the regulations take effect in October 2002, standard formats and code sets will take the place of any payer-specific or location-specific formats or requirements.

Patient Rights. Enactment of HIPAA enables patients in many ways by providing them a set of rights which include a right to be notified about the privacy practices of the covered entity they are dealing with, a right over control and access of their Personal Health Information(PHI), and to take legal action against an entity on encountering any HIPAA violation without facing threats of retaliation.

Put in place in 2003, it was designed to protect patient privacy, informed consent, and how records can be stored and used. Although this law was created with good intentions, it has many negative effects. These negative effects were summarized in the documentary by Dr. Pomeranz, "HIPPA is trying to guarantee patient safety, but in doing so, they're killing the team and killing the relationship" (McGarry, 2013). As discussed in class, HIPPA limits communication that may save lives, and this limitation on communication is what Dr. Pomeranz is indicating as killing the team. Since violating HIPPA is a criminal offense and the rules of the law are too confusing, organizations tend to lean toward the side of caution and limit communication. This limit on communication slows research, workflow, and efficiency. Dr. Deeb Salem shared an example about a patient who underwent a cardiac transplantation and two days later the care team was informed that the donors blood revealed bacteremia. The doctors contacted the hospital who had cared for the, now-deceased, donor in an attempt to confirm the identity of bacterium so that proper antibiotics could be used. Although time was crucial for the recipient, the donor's hospital stated that providing such information would violate HIPAA, since the hospital did not have authorization from the donor (Salem, 2003). Confronting the issues with HIPPA is necessary in order to avoid situations as such and increase overall communication between medical

Technology has become an essential part of our everyday life therefore, it makes sense that doctors and hospitals get rid of the old fashioned paper charting and use technology to access patient records. Electronic health records (EHR) provide quick access to information, as doctors no longer have to wait for other providers to fax previous records to them. The accessibility of Electronic Health Records assist medical providers to make quick medical care decisions, by accessing previous care provided to patients including treatment and diagnosis. Quick access to information through EHR enables health care providers to treat patients faster as there is no need for records to be mailed or