The Importance And Dangers Of HIPAA

In August of 1996, Congress passed The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA accomplished numerous goals to protect the citizens of our country. A few of their goals were:
 The ability to transfer your health insurance after loosing or changing your job.
 Requiring protection and confidential handling (and destruction) of Protected Health Information (PHI).
 Requires providers to adhere to industry-wide standards regarding electric billing and other processes.
 Reduces health care fraud and abuse
While HIPAA in its entirety is very important to the healthcare industry, the privacy and impact it had upon the citizens is the most important part. There are numerous interesting facts about the aspects of confidentiality

Physically stolen information can result from records being recovered after they were improperly disposed of or the medical chart being taken when the backs of the medical staff are turned. These are both pretty scary scenarios to consider as the outcome has numerous negative effects upon the patients life. Unauthorized disclosure of patient information is the second most common form of violation, with a total of 20%. This means the health care staff is letting the patient’s information be seen and used, either knowingly or unknowingly, by somebody other than the professionals and the patient themselves. These numbers are both astronomical as well as preventable. The US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights states that “between April 2003 and January 2013 they received 91,000 complaints of HIPAA violations, in which 22,000 led to enforcement actions of varying kinds (from settlements to fines) and 521 led to referrals to the US Dept of Justice (criminal actions).” Prosecution rates may continue to rise, however, it is now our responsibility, as medical staff, to prevent the information from being release in the first place as well as to keep our patients information