An Attack On The Hipaa System

For this week’s discussion I have read the article assigned this week regarding HIPAA violations. I will summarize the case against the physician and what the HIPAA law states. I will also discuss what the penalties are for a HIPAA violation and if this physician could have faced further charges.

Pennsylvania Cardiologist and Mobile-Tech Consultant, David Lee Scher, MD, FACC, states that remote monitoring can help healthcare providers care for their chronically ill patients. Remote monitoring provides an avenue for the patient and physician to remain connected outside of the acute-care setting. http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/content/tags/chronic-care/remote-patient-monitoring-how-mobile-devices-will-curb-c?page=full These monitoring systems transmit the patient’s readings to a collection point that healthcare providers can access at any time. Furthermore, there is no need for healthcare providers to hire additional staff because remote patient monitoring companies like Televero have call centers and easily integrate with electronic health systems https://www.televero.com/ehr-integrations/.

HIPAA, what is it? It is privacy, control, and peace of mind. You have the right for your medical information to be kept confidential. You have the right to decide whether or not family members are privy to your medical information. If you are changing jobs, why worry about health insurance coverage. Picture this. A woman called a local hospital and inquired about the condition of a patient. She was informed by the nurse that the patient was on a ventilator and could not talk. Even though interaction seems perfectly harmless, it was actually a clear violation of the privacy of the patient. A prescription for a local analgesic was presented to the pharmacist for a patient with a name similar to a patient already on file. The prescription was filled for the current patient who was actually the father, and not the patient. The pharmacist assumed that the patient was the father and shared with the patient that there was another medication that he had filled for you and asked, “Would you also like to pick up that medication also”? The father was not present and therefore could not object to the sharing of this information with the son. In the past, if you had a preexisting disease such as chronic fatigue or pregnancy, you could be denied health care coverage. Because Congress stepped in to assist and fix the healthcare system, denial of insurance because of a preexisting disease is not accepted. In view of this significant law, this paper will

(Dietrich, 2015), discussed that new regulations have caused many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) to become subject to patient health care data security rules under HIPAA. When providing consulting services to a healthcare organization or assisting with revenue cycle, CPAs should try to limit their liability by minimizing exposure to health care data and establish an engagement letter to ensure the healthcare organization is liable if patient health care data is unnecessarily provided to the CPA. Under HIPAA, electronic information must be protected during electronic exchange, technically protected against unauthorized access, and physically protected against unauthorized access

We human beings have been gathering data since the dawn of mankind, whether it was in the form of pictures drawn on stones or in the form some text typed and saved on your computer.

Integration will lead to superior diagnoses as doctors will have access to medical records from across the country, enabling them to draw on the diagnoses of other doctors facing similar situations. It will also allow for seamless care as records for the same patients will be instantly accessible and fully up to date wherever they go. The application layer will be standardized, with a consumer-facing mobile and web application and a doctor-facing web portal. While the way care is administered differs from hospital to hospital and clinic to clinic, what a practitioner needs from an IT solution will remain relatively constant.

Specific Purpose: I want to inform my audience about HIPAA “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act”.

Did you know that violating HIPAA can lead to criminal charges and even possible jail time? Also can cost you up to $1.5 million a year depending on the violation (Brown,2014). Violating HIPAA can be something as little as talking about the treatment of your patient that day to another nurse in the elevator. In this paper HIPAA will be defined and the importance of HIPAA in the health care system. As well as outcomes of what will happen if laws are violated. In addition, the scenario ending and what should happen to the nurse. Lastly, the advantages and disadvantages of cellphones and electronic devices in healthcare.

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.

While I understand the need for both, I think that Congress should make HIPAA the law of the land with regards to medical privacy. Every individual’s rights and information should have the same level of protection no matter where in the United States they are located. Not only would a universal law help to eliminate the confusion between states, it would also remove a few of the barriers associated with universal healthcare. With better communication across state lines, patients will be able to send and receive information in a timely manner improving patient outcomes and quality.

The right to receive a notice of privacy practices - Patients have the right to receive a notice explaining how a provider or health plan uses and discloses their health information.

Each policy that has been formulated and brought forth to legislation goes through its many challenges and analyzation before being implemented and becomes a policy and part of legislation. The statutes of HIPAA were brought forth and formulated in hopes of regulating covered entities and providing a type of universal protection of patient information and data. There is no doubt that the policy for HIPAA created skepticism about health privacy laws and the impact that it would have on the health care industry and its professionals.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted for the purpose of protecting the privacy of a client 's personal and health information.¹ Under HIPAA, protected health information (PHI) includes but is not limited to the following: a person 's name, address, date of birth, age, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address, medical records, diagnosis, x-rays, photos, prescriptions, lab work, or test results.¹ In this particular case scenario, a healthcare employee not only breached HIPAA in regards to publically releasing a patient’s PHI without the consent of the patient, but they also betrayed their patient’s trust. Regardless of any personal relationship a physical therapist would have with another healthcare professional, steps must be taken to assure that this breach in patient confidentiality is rectified and that a similar mistake is not made again.

One of the huge issues at the time of conception was the transition to electronic means of storage and transfer. At the time this technology was new, and not widely used as it is today. However with the implementation of HIPAA, it helped create a sense of trust and security that was not present before. By creating procedures to follow when storing and transferring information electronically, it educated many on how patient information was really being handled. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that HIPAA helped the adoption of electronic prescribing among physicians and other clinicians, overall adoption rates increasing from 5% to 18% (HIPAA: Impact). Essentially it helped usher in a new age of technology and assisted in its assimilation into the health industry, which provides far more convenience and utility than previous methods.

There are a multitude of patient privacy (HIPAA) and patient information concerns related to the use of technology in medical care. Selection of the proper hardware, operating systems and system software make the compliance with and documentation in support of these regulations far easier.