Congress Passed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act to Protect Privacy and Health Care

During the 1980’s, medical-related situations continuously occurred that made patients question their insurance policies as well as the privacy of their health care. Congress worked to create a bill containing strict rules regarding insurance policies and availability for one to keep their insurance if they are to move jobs. These rules were soon applied to all medical facilities and faculty and titled the “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act”.The H.I.P.A.A. policies brought about change in professionalism, medical standards, taxing, and enforcement. Throughout history, maintaining patient privacy has always been a problem in the medical field. Patients have the right to their privacy and the information that they do not want to disclose should be kept privately. Since this was an overly occurring problem, the congress believed that they should make a law to fix this problem. On August 21, 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by congress and President Bill Clinton.

History of HIPAA

Titles Of HIPAA: Purposes

There are 5 titles that serve purpose to the HIPAA law. The first title is to

What it does

Allow the definition of privacy to be Privacy is the right of an individual to keep his/her individual health information from being disclosed.

During the 1980’s, medical-related situations continuously occurred that made patients question their insurance policies as well as the privacy of their health care. Congress worked to create a bill containing strict rules regarding insurance policies and availability for one to keep their insurance if they are to move jobs. These rules were soon applied to all medical facilities and faculty and titled the “Health Insuran...

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... with an annual maximum of $1.5 million. For a more severe violation, such as a HIPAA violation due to willful neglect and is not corrected, the minimum penalty is $50,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $1.5 million. In other words, there are civil penalties of $100 per violation, but if there are multiple violations with respect to a single individual then the penalties can be “stacked”. The maximum civil penalties are $25,000 per year, per person, per standard. If two standards were violated with respect to one person, the potential penalties could mount to as much as $50,000. Criminal penalties (up to a $250,000 fine and ten years in prison) may be imposed for "knowingly and improperly" disclosing information or obtaining information under "false pretenses", with higher penalties reserved for violations designed for financial gain or "malicious harm".