Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, most commonly known by its initials HIPAA, was enacted by Congress then signed by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996. This act was put into place in order to regulate the privacy of patient health information, and as an effort to lower the cost of health care, shape the many pieces of our complicated healthcare system. This act also protects individuals from losing their health insurance if they lose their employment or choose to switch employers. . Before HIPAA there was no standard or consistency for the enforcement of the privacy for patients and the rules and regulations varied by state and organizations. HIPAA virtually affects everybody within the healthcare field including but not limited to patients, providers, payers and intermediaries. Although there are many parts of the HIPAA act, for the purposes of this paper we are going to focus on the two main sections and the four objectives of HIPAA, a which are to improve the portability (the capability of transferring from one employee to another) of health insurance, combat fraud, abuse, and waste in health insurance, to promote the expanded use of medical savings accounts, and to simplify the administration of health insurance. Title I of the HIPAA act refers to mostly the group health plans and the restrictions they can place upon the policy holder. In layman’s terms, HIPAA makes sure through Title I, that a third party cannot deny you coverage due to the loss or change in employment. On top of the basic clause, a group plan cannot deny coverage based on your health status, which includes medical history, genetic information, or disabilities. Ti... ... middle of paper ... ...proactive. With the way that HIPAA was drafted, then add the possible penalties for violators, lead physicians and medical facilities to withold information from individuals who have a right to it. After reviewing the rules of the HIPAA, the legislation found health care providers were unsure of their legal privacy responsibilities and often responded with an overly guarded approach to disclosing information. To date these rules are still confusing and need to made clearer. References Medical Law and Ethics 4th edition, Bonnie F. Fremgen PhD, (2012, 2009, 2006, 2002) Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine 8th edition, (2009) Health Insurance Today: A Practical Approach 3rd edition, Janet I. Beik (2011) www.health.howstuffworks.com www.ehow.com/facts www.all-things-medical-billing.com/history www.geomarcomputers.com/hipaa www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hippa
Under HIPAA, are you legally allowed to view this patient’s medical information? Why or why not?
The knowledge about the HIPAA Privacy and Security rules; its coverage and benefits; its development and updates will help an individual to understand the law to effectively manage and protect his or her own personal health record. The advent of computer technology and the HIPAA terms that were associated with information system will be discussed. Some of the experiences with HIPAA will shared to give a better picture and understanding of the law.
Since the formed President Bill Clinton signed HIPAA policy in to law, it has been a driving for the healthcare facilities though out the United State. This law has been shaping the healthcare facilities better conditions. HIPAA policy has causes the healthcare facilities to have document in place when a patient is admitted to the hospital seeing physician at clinic or all confidentiality document must be sign up on a admitted. When these documents signed, the patient and the others person who authorized to view any of the documents, for example: Medical records of the patient medication, diseases, tests results, etc.
According to the report provided by the consultant, the employees at this facility were not taking precautions in safeguarding the patient’s health information. Therefore, the employees at this facility were in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). It is important for employees to understand the form of technology being used and the precautions they must take to safeguard patient information.
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.
This paper will examine the privacy rules of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996
“The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 made it illegal to gain access to personal medical information for any reasons other than health care delivery, operations, and reimbursements” (Shi & Singh, 2008, p. 166). “HIPAA legislation mandated strict controls on the transfer of personally identifiable health data between two entities, provisions for disclosure of protected information, and criminal penalties for violation” (Clayton 2001). “HIPAA also has privacy requirements that govern disclosure of patient protected health information (PHI) placed in the medical record by physicians, nurses, and other health care providers” (Buck, 2011). Always remember conversations about a patient’s health care or treatment is a violation of HIPAA. “All PHI is included in the privacy requirements for example: the patient’s past, present or future physical or mental health or condition; the provision of health care to the individual, or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to the individual, and that identifies the individual or for which there is a reasonable basis to believe it can be used to identify the individual” (Buck, 2011). Other identifiable health information would be the patient’s name, address, birth date and Social Security Number (Keomouangchanh, 2011). (Word count 197)
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a statute endorsed by the U.S. Congress in 1996. It offers protections for many American workers which improves portability and continuity of health insurance coverage. The seven titles of the final law are Title I - Health care Access , Portability, Title II - Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse; administrative simplification; Medical Liability Reform; Title III – Tax-related Health Provisions; Title IV – Application and Enforcement of Group Health Plan Requirements; Title V – Revenue Offsets; Title XI – General Provisions, Peer Review, Administrative Simplification; Title XXVII – Assuring Portability, Availability and Renewability of Health Insurance Coverage. (Krager & Krager, 2008)
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...
HIPAA and fraud & abuse tie together in the way HIPAA protects the use the PHI in the billing and coding of claim form. No matter if the patient sells their information, HIPAA is there to help protect against fraud and abuse. One way HIPAA helps prevent fraud and abuse is in the case of preforming an audit. Although the government is the top payer in the US. Payers are the ones who do the audit of the offices. They make sure that what is on the claim matches what is on the patient’s record. This is how fraud and abuse can be stopped from continuing on.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed and were signed into law on August 21, 1996. It affects the medical facility and its day to day operations; in many different ways. HIPAA sets higher standard of operation for healthcare workers and the facilities. "HIPAA was instituted to "improve the portability and continuity of health insurance coverage; to combat waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and healthcare 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 to serve other purposes" (Kinn’s, 2011).
Some of the things that HIPAA does for a patient are it gives patients more control over their health information. It sets boundaries on the use and release of health records. It establishes appropriate guidelines that health care providers and others must do to protect the privacy of the patients’ health information. It holds violators accountable, in court that can be imposed if they violate patients’ privacy rights by HIPAA. Overall HIPAA makes it to where the health information can’t b...
HIPPA Privacy Rules were established to protect health information that may be used or disclosed by covered entities for research trial purposes. HIPPA Privacy Rules define research as a systematic investigation, including research development, testing, and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalized knowledge (“Research,” HHS.gov, June 5, 2013). Privacy Rule established regulation guidelines to inform research volunteers on how medical information for research purposes will be utilized. Guidelines and right to access medical information held by researching entity are also covered in the HIPPA Privacy Rule. Countermeasures to establish protection of identifiable individual health information during research are extremely important,
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the real title of the bill, enacted in 2009. It is far better known as The Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. This bill represents the biggest revolution and improvement, or at least an attempt towards it, in the health care of the United States of America since the passage of Medicaid and Medicare in 1965. The main purpose of the ACA implementation was, as the bill states in its title, to make: ˝ Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans˝ possible. Before the ObamaCare, there were millions of American who were uninsured, or had poor quality insurance plan. On the other hand those who did have health care coverage, even the decent one, we left on their own when insurance companies abused their trust and deprived them of their rights. That was the reason why the government and the President Obama, hoped to increase the quality and make the health insurance more affordable. The idea was to lower uninsured rate by firstly increasing the extent of public and also private coverage, and then secondly, to minimise the costs of health care for both individuals and the government.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA), Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA), and the Freedom of Information Act all provide legal protection under many laws. It also involves ethical protection. The patient must be able to completely trust the healthcare provider by having confidence that their information is kept safe and not disclosed without their consent. Disclosing any information to the public could be humiliating for them. Patient information that is protected includes all medical and personal information related to their medical records, medical treatments, payment records, date of birth, gender, and