Medical records and their contents have been an important issue concerning privacy for physicians and their patients. A health care reform bill which passed legislation in 1996 is known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) had a new rule put into place in 2000, which requires health care physicians and insurance providers to put into place new procedures that would guard patient health information ("Patient Privacy and Confidentiality", 2013). The debate is still going on today about what can and cannot be done legitimately with patients health information. There are worries about who should be able to access the patient’s information and for what reasons do they have to be accessing the patient’s health information. While on the other side there is an increasing need for performance assessments, efficient health guard, and a proficient administration for more and better information. Health care services are now starting to realize that they have a lot of work to do to be in compliance with the current health laws on the state and federal level guidelines when it comes to dealing with protecting patient data. Confidentiality will always be an important component in medical discussions, but confidentiality on the other hand is not a right and has to be stable against counter claims (Chalmers, 2003). Some arguments and facts that were used in the article were how are health care providers supposed to be able to correct the stability? Should overt content always be required from clients for any use of their health care information separately from the direct clinical care? The proof suggests that where the informed consent is needed completeness of health information hurts and unfinished health ... ... middle of paper ... ...able to bring together their values as a person, as an administrator, as a staff member, and as a spokesperson charged with the job to protect the mission and values of the company they are working for. Only after the beliefs’ and the conflicts have been looked over can a resourceful answer be found. And the best solution will always be one that will not breach on the rights of all the people involved in the outcome of the problem. For any administrator in the health care field they must always be aware of any problem that has happened and be able to fore see any problems that might arise in the future. The administrator has to be able to work with staff and keep them up to date with any and all changes to the way in which they handle patient information. As well as be able to put aside their personal beliefs for the benefit of the organization and the patient.
Overall these sources proved to provide a great deal of information to this nurse. All sources pertained to HIPAA standards and regulations. This nurse sought out an article from when HIPAA was first passed to evaluate the timeline prospectively. While addressing the implications of patient privacy, these articles relate many current situations nurses and physicians encounter daily. These resources also discussed possible violations and methods to prevent by using an informaticist and information technology.
Doctors, nurses, and medical assistants these people are supposed to ensure our safety and wellbeing, yet a small error can leak private information. That is why HIPAA was enacted in 1996, and became effective in the year 2001. HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA serves to protect you and your medical files. You can decide when and with whom your information can be shared. Also, you can ask for your medical record and make sure it is correct, if it’s not you can file a complaint. HIPAA is valuable to keeping your medical files protected, but you may ask does it really work?
The requirement of the 1996, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is that every organizations and professionals to guard the privacy of their customers and patients, Carter P.
The confidentiality of patient visits and medical records are essential in providing the highest quality of health care. Under penalty of law, a patient's medical records or any other information regarding the patient may only be released with his or her authorization. Exceptions to this are certain cases specified by law for example, health care providers are required to report certain communicable diseases such as measles. Many organizations and laws have been developed to maintain patient's rights of confidentiality and access to their medical record. Guided by the principle that confidentiality is essential in developing strong trust between patients and healthcare providers, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) members are committed to ensuring that patient records are disclosed and only available to medical personnel and others acquired by law. In July 1999, the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), introduced a new Patient's Rights Condition of Participation (CPO) that hospitals must meet to be approved for, or to continue participation in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. The Health Insurance and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) addresses the security and privacy of health data and also issues standards for electronic health care transactions. The vast accumulations of personal medical data gives rise to serious privacy concerns as a result of the potential for misuse.
Patients have a fundamental right to privacy and confidentiality, which is provided under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. One of the original mandates of the policies that eventually became HIPPA was to improve fluidity of care. Thus, those practicing as team members in a hospital may communicate freely with others on a patient 's care team once a referral has been received. The law requires health care providers and payers to use standard formats for common transactions such as submitting an insurance claim on a patient 's behalf. Today, with e-mail and access to the Internet, it is much easier for providers to share records, but it is also much easier for people to misuse the information they contain. The information that is being protected, or Protected Health Information (PHI), includes the
290). Throughout numerous healthcare organizations, e-Health techniques are regarded as vital to the delivery of quality, patient-centred health care. The e -technology can improve patient-physician relationships, to guide aimed questions for greater understanding of health conditions and better management of the health disorders. As per The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services e-Health initiatives will help the health care industry deliver higher quality care and reduce costs. Among the limitations and shortcomings of E-health are the chances of impersonality, e-Health applications might not be user-friendly and commonly available. Patients also need to develop confidence in E-health. Concerns about privacy and security of information have slowed the development of this initiative (McGonigle & Garver Mastrian, 2015, p. 290). It is critical to assure the security of health-related medical records. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is the main Federal laws that protects patient’s health information. The Law requires the organizations that manage health information to have policies and safeguards to protect health information saved on paper or
The Security aspects of Electronic Health records are that there are mandated rules that health professionals must follow when accessing and sharing medical records. Regulations were created by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) frequently known as HIPAA which
Confidentiality means not sharing information about people without their knowledge and consent, and to ensure that any kind of information is not accessed by the irrelevant persons. Confidentiality is a very important aspect of practice in health and social care. However, it is often misunderstood that people think confidentiality is about keeping information secret. In fact confidentiality is to share the information with the people who need to know it. When someone shares information with you it is confidential. But that doesn’t mean it is secret. It means that the information should only be shared with people who are responsible for providing care to the service user. Confidentiality enables service users to have a sense of trust in professionals
Important care information and all conversations held between a patient and their doctor, are kept strictly confidential. Access to this type of data, is strictly monitored and restricted amongst the type of health professionals allowed to view it. A common problem arises in the request of a patient’s medical records, by the patient’s private insurance provider. Since the insurance companies are footing the bill for most every procedure done to a patient under their umbrella, they have the right to view a patient's treatment to thoroughly understand what their company is being billed for. While they are allowed to see certain parts of a patient’s medical records, there are certain bits of data that should be held private as they are unrelated to the current procedures. Acts such as HIPAA, have created an outline to follow when it comes to electronic medical records being transferred to insurance companies. While situations questioning the ethics of releasing this information safely still arise, practices such as this one are being perfected daily. For a hospital, the safety of patient information is crucial to their success, and builds trust between the patient and provider. Thanks to federal and state laws, we have a legal outline for decisions in certain situations, but the ethics is
There are an abundance of character traits and skills that Healthcare Administrators utilize throughout their career. Comprehension and reasoning are the two most prevalent. You need the ability to understand through written and spoken sentences. Since communicating with others is the majority of a day in the life of an administrator, it is
A family is not always able to be involved in the plan of care. In my current role as a nurse it is more common for families not to be involved in the patient’s services. Similar to the scenario you discussed, there are those situations where family needs to be involved in the plan or decision, but it is more the exception versus the norm in my current clinical setting. Mckee, Rubin, Campos and O’Sullivan (2011) discuss issues that physicians face with providing services to adolescents from allowing time alone during the visit to seeing the adolescents unaccompanied. Confidentiality is a struggle the more complicated the situation becomes such as a teenager that is pregnant (Mckee, Rubin, Campos, & O’Sullivan, 2011). We service many teenagers
Many authors believe that privacy and confidentiality are extremely important, especially when it comes to healthcare ethics. Autonomy has always been a precursor moral theory to these topics. So, should a physician be allowed to respect a patient’s autonomy by concealing their privacy or in certain circumstances should they breach their confidentiality? James Rachel questions in the reading why should privacy be important. Privacy has always been important because it was a way of protecting people’s interest in situations, prevents them from being shamed, and it respect people’s autonomy. Prior to this reason he believes are utility and autonomy. These weren’t strong enough reason to value privacy. There is one example of in which privacy
The disclose of information in USA is regulate by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that was passed by Congress in the 1996 to defend the safety and security of the patient information that is being transmitted, combat fraud in the healthcare industry, make easy administration of health insurance and foster the use of medical savings plans for employees.
The social media has affected many different aspects of our practice in the healthcare. Social media and mobile phones have become an integral part of our daily life. Our everyday lives are being recorded and shared with or without our permission. Technology is an essential part of our clinical practice and continually improving to do more impressive things. Along with the advancement in technology, our thinking process and culture is also changing. Healthcare used to be a safe harbor of privacy and technology has brought its own concerns to privacy of patients. Recently the use of technology in different aspects of healthcare by patient and provider has increased the legal responsibility, with financial consequences, for any adverse occurrence.
1). Doctors and other medical workers believe they should have free access to this private information even if the data does not correspond with what they are now helping the patient with. ACHE started to not only protect the patient’s right to share their medical history only when they want, but to have greater internet security. ACHE addresses the false internet security by stating, “While information technology can improve the quality of care by enabling instant retrieval… it also can increase the risk of unauthorized use, access and disclosure of confidential patient information.” (Health Information Confidentiality para. 2). They have vowed to encourage limited sharing of patient information over external databases that these unauthorized persons could be apprehending. As for other organizations, the HIPAA act of 1996 and Protected Health Information (PHI) released a statement in 2012 that health care workers should work on at least keeping records of who the patient’s information is released to. ACHE, the HIPAA act, and PHI are all organizations that are bringing ethical reasoning to this issue and taking leaps forward to bring patients the privacy they