Introduction
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, is a law designed “to improve portability and continuity of health insurance coverage in the group and individual markets, to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery, to promote the use of medical savings accounts, to improve access to long-term care services and coverage, to simplify the administration of health insurance, and for other purposes.”1 HIPAA mandates that covered entities must employ technological means to ensure the privacy of sensitive information. This white paper intends to study the requirements put forth by HIPAA by examining what is technically necessary for them to be implemented, the technological feasibility of this, and what commercial, off-the-shelf systems are currently available to implement these requirements.
HIPAA Overview
On July 21, 1996, Bill Clinton signed HIPAA into law. It was passed partly because of the failure of congress to pass comprehensive health insurance legislation earlier in the decade. The general goals of HIPAA are to:
* Increase number of employees who have health insurance;
* Reduce health care fraud and abuse;
* Introduce/implement administrative simplifications in order to augment effectiveness of health care in the US;
* Protect the health information of individuals against access without consent or authorization;
* Give patients more rights over their private data;
* Set better boundaries for the use of medical information;
* Hold people accountable for misuse;
* Encourage administrative simplification (in the form of digitalization of information) to help reduce costs.
HIPAA affects covered entities which are defined as:
– Health plans;
– Health care clearinghouses;
– Health care providers who transmit health information in electronic form for certain standard transactions.
Even though HIPAA was singed into law over seven years ago, its effects are mostly being felt now. This is because of its schedule of compliance:
* 10/16/2002 - Transactions and code sets
* 4/14/2003 – Privacy Rule
* 4/14/2003 – Business Associates
* 4/20/2005 – Security Rule
This delay stems from a provision in the original act stating that if Congress did not specify certain regulations by the end of 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had to do it. Congress did not meet its deadline, so HHS had to write up the regulations and give companies a chance to implement them.
Have you ever wanted to explore the world, or even “start a new life” in the country? In the novel, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, the author emphasizes about a historical young man, Chris McCandless, who is trying to begin a new life in a series based on factual evidence. Throughout the novel, Krakauer guides us to have many questions and concerns about Chris McCandless, his past life and what he had set out to do. Although McCandless was a man that many readers misunderstood, readers were still able to figure his personality out by continuously scrutinizing and taking notes. Jon Krakauer allows us to examine Chris McCandless by providing actual text and dialogue from his family and peers that he had known and ran into while living in the wild.
In the novel, “Into the Wild,” by Jon Krakauer, a young man named Chris McCandless (also known as Alex Supertramp) is headed to Alaska on a challenging journey. Chris McCandless gave everything up to go, “Into the Wild,” for many different reasons. McCandless’s reasons for this decision include self-reliance, his hubris personality, and his home environment. The wilderness represented freedom for Chris, using it as an escape from reality and time for himself to think. Chris decided to take on the “Alex Supertramp” persona to start a new life and bring in a new, braver, personality for himself.
Chris McCandless is regarded as being something as a spiritual figure almost as a cult hero, some call him a disillusioned fool, some call him a great adventurer, and the debate still continues. As Matthew Power calls in his article, an article where he tells the story of McCandless,“The debate falls into two camps: Krakauer's visionary seeker, the tragic hero who dared to live the unmediated life he had dreamed of and died trying; or, as many Alaskans see it, the unprepared fool, a greenhorn who had fundamentally misjudged the wilderness he'd wanted so desperately to commune with.” Like so many stories covering Christopher McCandless’ death, both ends of the argument are discussed in an unfavored manner in the hopes to help develop an opinion on the McCandless story. This open ended question can only be answered open-endedly based on what the readers base for themselves as covered stories intend. Like Power has done, ...
HIPAA is the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The primary goal of the law is to make it easier for people to keep health insurance, protect the confidentiality and security of healthcare information ad help the healthcare industry control administrative costs. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. HIPAA was first introduced in 1996. It was made a law by the United States Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. The HIPAA Privacy Rule protects an individual’s medical records and other personal health information.
This paper will examine the privacy rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996
A young man journey into the deep wild to escape the pressure of society and in seek of the meaning of happiness. Into The Wild, a non-fiction biography written by Jon Krakauer, a story of a man named Chris McCandless, who is a well educated, wealthy young man, that seek his answer to true happiness in the wild of the Alaska region. As his journey continue onward, he met many new people that he had influence to do things against the current.
Identity theft has always been in the back of my mind whenever I use my debit card but I wasn’t too concerned about my health information until I learned about HIPAA. It is a very important set of rules and standards that protects our privacy.
US Congress created the HIPAA bill in 1996 because of public concern about how their private information was being used. It is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which Congress created to protect confidentiality, privacy and security of patient information. It was also for health care documents to be passed electronically. HIPAA is a privacy rule, which gives patients control over their health information. Patients have to give permission any health care provider can disclose any information placed in the individual’s medical records. It helps limit protected health information (PHI) to minimize the chance of inappropriate disclosure. It establishes national-level standards that healthcare providers must comply with and strictly investigates compliance related issues while holding violators to civil or criminal penalties if they violate the privacy of a person’s PHI. HIPAA also has boundaries for using and disclosing health records by covered entities; a healthcare provider, health plan, and health care clearinghouse. It also supports the cause of disclosing PHI without a person’s consent for individual healthcare needs, public benefit and national interests. The portability part of HIPAA guarantees patient’s health insurance to employees after losing a job, making sure health insurance providers can’t discriminate against people because of health status or pre-existing condition, and keeps their files safe while being sent electronically. The Privacy Rule protects individual’s health information and requires medical providers to get consent for the release of any medical information and explain how private health records are protected. It also allows patients to receive their medical records from any...
Why is important for the HIPAA and the Bill of Right work in the healthcare system.
McCandless is the ideal tragic hero because he was born with both intelligence and integrity. He has integrity because even though he was born into an upper class family, he ends up giving all his riches away for his “Great Alaskan adventure”. McCandless had no desire for luxuries and he did not bel...
McCandless’s family and peers expect him to live life a certain way, to follow the family tradition, however, it is McCandless’s high social standards for himself, and his sharp view of right and wrong, that would define the blueprint of his tragic flaw that caused him to go into the wild. In High School, McCandless would start to show some of his radical ideas about how he could help fix society. McCandless’s high school buddies explained that “’ Chris didn’t like going through channels, working within the system.”’ (113) Instead, McCandless would often talk about leaving school to go South Africa to help end the apartheid. When his friends or adults responded by saying that you are only kids, or you can’t make a difference, McCandless would simply respond “so I guess you just don’t care about right and wrong ‘” (113). McCandless would grow to learn that hi...
... only used by Achebe to further enrich the common theme of clash of opposing cultures, but they also are what make Things Fall Apart a universal human experience that is common to all people. Achebe uses these symbols because all cultures can relate to them: drums are seen as a celebration of culture, locusts are unwanted invaders, and fire is destructive. Things Fall Apart is written from the unique African point of view, and it shows how Europeans have destroyed important parts of African culture. Perhaps Achebe uses universal symbols not only to make it more relevant to all cultures, but also to seek increased humanitarian missions to Africa. Nevertheless, Achebe’s use of figurative language and common elements not only highlight the most profound changes that Umuofia experiences, but it also causes people to question their preconceived notions on society.
In today’s society anything can be considered “Art”. From the great sounds of a symphony, to the architecture of a modern structure, or even an elephant painting with its trunk, art is what the viewer perceives it to be. Individuals will always agree or disagree with the message behind a certain piece of art, as pieces can be offensive to some, but beautiful to others. Some argue that funding the arts in school is a waste of money, time, or a combination of both, but the benefits outweigh the negatives by far, due to a variety of reasons.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart shows an odd similarity between the cultures of Ancient Greece and the Lower Niger. Despite the fact that two societies can exist during different periods of time and have conflicting cultural values, their stories and behavior can have surprising overlaps. Things Fall Apart is structured like a Greek Tragedy in its use of a chorus and in the presence of a tragic hero whose actions ultimately lead to his downfall.
In his work Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells a story describing the decay and destruction of ancient African tradition caused by the invasion of white culture. His tone in the book seems to side and sympathize with the Africans and their religion. Interestingly enough, though, he uses biblical allusion, as well as onomatopoeia and symbolism to bring the book to life and captivate the reader. The following will describe how he uses these.