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:
1) Make sure Protected Health Information (PHI) is not casually observable. This means turning papers face down on your desk, not leaving charts visible on office doors, and making sure your computer screen cannot be readily seen by other people. This includes not only patients but other staff. If they are not directly involved in handling this specific case, they do not need the information in this file.
2) Make sure you verify a minimum of three pieces of
…show more content…
5) Make sure documentation is specific to the individual patient in question and does not contain information on other patients, not even other family members.
6) For young adults, check to see whether they are covered under their own policy or through their parents. Their parents do not have an automatic right to their records even though they provide the insurance coverage. Make sure you are not inadvertently giving out unauthorized access to medical records just because the parent is paying the bills. If there is no authorization on file granting them access, these records belong to the adult child and not the parent through whom insurance is being provided.
7) If you are giving out information by phone, you still need to verify that the person requesting it has authorization or is the actual patient in question. Make sure you either have authorization or verify three pieces of PHI. You also have an obligation to not let sensitive information be overheard by other patients or staff who are not involved in the
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
What information does the personal health record contain? • Patients name • Birthdate • Blood type • Emergency contacts • Any known allergies • Family history • Date of last physical • Dates of any major illnesses and surgeries • Test results and
The act is meant to followed by the rules, but the state can change certain thing according to the way it believes HIPAA should be done. If someone were to commit theft, he or she would have to pay thousand in fines and be sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. The hospitals and medical institutes must call, mail, email, or use the media to inform the victims that his or her information is a risk. They will have up to 30 days to contact everyone involved or an additional 30 if he or she is having trouble finding a large number of people or if the police have to become part of the solution.
The first article was a summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. In the article, there was an introduction on what HIPAA meant and its importance. First off, HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and it is a disclosure of patient information so that it is protected from unknown individuals and to assure that health providers abide by the privacy rule. Some key facts about HIPAA were, who was covered, what information is protected, and administrative requirements. Noncompliance and criminal penalties were some of the critical issues found in the article.
Healthcare providers and organizations are obligated and bound to protect patient confidentiality by laws and regulations. Patient information may only be disclosed to those directly involved in the patient’s care or those the patient identifies as able to receive the information. The HIPAA Act of 1996 is the federal law mandating healthcare organizations and clinicians to safeguard patient’s medical information. This law corresponds with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act to include security standards for protecting electronic health information. The healthcare organization is legally responsible for establishing procedures to prevent data
HIPAA is an acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. It is the United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. Important things to know about HIPAA are the basics of it, the obligations of an organization under it, and key provisions of it. You must also be informed about healthcare professionals’ responsibilities under HIPAA and penalties for non-compliance.
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).
Understanding HIPAA laws, following them and reporting violations safeguard confidential
This is called protected health information or PHI. Information meets the definition of PHI if, even without the patient’s name, if you look at certain information and you can tell who the person is then it is PHI. The PHI can relate to past, present or future physical or mental health of the individual. PHI describes a disease, diagnosis, procedure, prognosis, or condition of the individual and can exist in any medium files, voice mail, email, fax, or verbal communications. defines information as protected health information if it contains the following information about the patient, the patient’s household members, or the patient’s employers, Names, Dates relating to a patient, i.e. birth dates, dates of medical treatment, admission and discharge dates, and dates of death, Telephone numbers, addresses (including city, county, or zip code) fax numbers and other contact information, Social Security numbers, Medical records numbers, Photographs, Finger and voice prints, Any other unique identifying
As a patient you know the rules but as a Medical Assistant or anything related to the medical field you should be more than experienced with what you can or cannot do related to the patient rights, privacy and obviously HIPPA rules. “The HIPAA Privacy Rule establishes national standards to protect individuals’ medical records and other personal health information and applies to health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care
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
It feels that my facility has all of the up to date technology in place but none of the workers are aware of it. I have raised a few eyebrows at work over the past few days it hops to tighten all the loopholes that I am now aware of. Hopefully my new found discussions at work will prevent many co-workers the hardships from the consequences of a HIPAA violation. In the case for Dr.Zhou, as a result of his HIPAA violation
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
Especially if you may know the patient outside the office, say like a friend or family member that went to the office regarding a personal matter, and they don’t want anyone to find out it is my
Information should be conveyed to them in a way that they're able to understand. They also have the right to a written summary of any information that is provided to them. In general they're entitled to have access to or copies of your medical records. However, there may be exceptional circumstances in which a doctor is entitled to refuse access to the patient. If this is the case, they must be told of the reason for the refusal.