Health Insurance Portability And Accountability Act: HIPAA

“Healthcare Reform 101,” written by Rick Panning (2014), is a wonderful article that describes, in an easy-to-understand language, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law March 23, 2010. The main goal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was to provide affordable, quality healthcare to Americans while simultaneously reducing some of the country’s economic problems. Two areas will be covered throughout this paper. The first section will include a summary of the major points and highlights of Panning’s (2014) article, including an introduction to the ACA, goals of the signed legislation, provided coverage, and downfalls of the current healthcare system. The second part will be comprised of a professional

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).

HIPAA expressly allows a covered entity, such as the Hospital, to disclose PHI for the purpose of obtaining reimbursement for the provision of health care without need of the patient’s authorization. Accordingly, we recommend that a letter be sent to Mr. Craven explaining why his complaint has no basis in law or fact. The goal of this letter will be to discourage him from making a frivolous complaint to the government. I.

HIPAA has changed Healthcare Information in so many ways when it comes down to EDI. The system is designed to simplify electronic transactions and codes sets. The simplification of HIPAA was designed to show a consistency and operational improvements within the payer and the provider. In order to transfer healthcare information, it has to comply with the standards of HIPAA for that transaction.

You are correct Vaschar, the HIPAA privacy rule does play a big part in the role of keeping patient information secure. In the instance when a patients information is given to a fellow medical provider for continuity of care to establish a consult appointment is not an issue, but should that patients medical records need to be released between the medical provider and the other provider of care a medical records release authorization should be signed by either the patient or the patients representative. In the case where a medical provider wishes to distribute a product for another company it can do so without any HIPAA violation just as long as it does not pass on any patient demographic or patient care information to the company. If

HIPAA is short for health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996. They have many requirement that’s a medical assistant could have and use to become a better assistant. They have many requirements that the policy requires covered encounters by taking reasonable steps: covered entry to develop and implement policies for its own organization. Reflecting the business practices and work force.

To lay the groundwork for portability, this rule set standardized codes and formats for the interchange of medical data and for administrative purposes. HIPAA mandates two types of codes for the transfer of data. First and most importantly, uniform codes are needed to describe diseases and injuries, describe the causes of the diseases and injuries, and to describe the preventions and treatments used. Secondly, there are smaller sets of codes for many administrative purposes—for describing ethnicity, the type of facility or the type of unit where care was performed. As much as possible, the major codes have been chosen based on code sets that are already in use, known as "legacy

HIPAA policy is divided into several titles. The title 1 of HIPAA will secure health insurance for various employees and their relevant families when the employees lose or change their specific jobs. The title II of HIPAA is also known as Administrative Simplification Specification (AS), which will require the standardization of various national standards for secured electronic healthcare data transactions and national identifiers for various providers, health insurance plans and organizations. The official HIPAA privacy rule was first published on April 14, 2003 that had one-year validity with certain schemes.

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.

In order to ensure their protection HIPAA has instituted the Privacy and Security Rules that pertain to the safeguard of the Administrative, Physical, and Technical aspect to a patients EHRs. This insures that your provider puts into place measurements that guard against any unauthorized use of a patients PHI. Administrative Safeguards: HIPAA requires providers to have policies and procedures that are in place that protect the patients security, privacy and confidentiality. The administrative safeguards required under the HIPAA Security Rule include: • Identifying

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.

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.

Throughout the past decades, many acts have been passed in support of health information technology and the adaptation of such technology. Two of those acts, the HIPAA (health insurance portability and accountability) Act and the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act, focus on protecting patient health information and utilizing health information technology. Although these acts bring about many positive changes within the healthcare industry, there are some downsides regarding the implementation of these acts, as there are with many acts that are passed. Both of these acts provide security to patient health information, however, the HITECH Act contributes more to the utilization of the electronic health

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

“Electronic health information exchange (HIE) allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient’s vital medical information electronically—improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care” (HealthIT, 2014). Health Information exchange is becoming important in the communication between providers to provide the best care possible to patients. Every state along with their hospitals has their own way of exchanging information between each other. South Carolina’s health information exchange is called “SCHIEx” (AHIMA, 2010). “SCHIEx provides a state-level information infrastructure for connecting local healthcare providers and other stakeholders” (AHIMA,