Case Study: HIPAA

. HIPAA privacy rules are complicated and extensive, and set forth guidelines to be followed by health care providers and other covered entities such as insurance carriers and by consumers. HIPAA is very specific in its requirements regarding the release of information, but is not as specific when it comes to the manner in which training and policies are developed and delivered within the health care industry. This paper will discuss how HIPAA affects a patient's access to their medical records, how and under what circumstances personal health information can be released to other entities for purposes

1. Mrs. Smith had a pregnancy test. Mr. Smith called Mrs. Smith’s physician and requested a copy of Mrs. Smith’s test results. Can/Should the physician release the results of the pregnancy test to Mr. Smith over the phone? (Use law and ethics to defend your answer) Why or why not?

Use of an EHR presents major opportunities for the compromise of patient’s personal health information (PHI). The facility must ensure proper safe guards are implemented and functioning properly at all times. Employees need to be educated on the safety measures to prevent breach of patient confidential health records. Privacy breaches can result from misuse or improper storage of PHI by the healthcare professional, by third party payers, or by lack of proper encryption in the EHR system itself (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a law that holds healthcare facilities and professionals accountable for keeping PHI confidential, patients to control

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.

Healthcare technology has grown and evolved over time. With the conversion to electronic medical records and the creation of social media just to name a few, ensuring patient privacy is of the utmost importance for healthcare facilities in this day and age. In order for an organization to avoid hefty fines, it is imperative that a healthcare administrator maintains compliance with the standards and regulations associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This paper will provide a summary

Although the EHR is still in a transitional state, this major shift that electronic medical records are taking is bringing many concerns to the table. Two concerns at the top of the list are privacy and standardization issues. In 1996, U.S. Congress enacted a non-for-profit organization called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This law establishes national standards for privacy and security of health information. HIPAA deals with information standards, data integrity, confidentiality, accessing and handling your medical information. They also were designed to guarantee transferred information be protected from one facility to the next (Meridan, 2007). But even with the HIPAA privacy rules, they too have their shortcomings. HIPAA can’t fully safeguard the limitations of who’s accessible to your information. A short stay at your local

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the electronic health record mandate. Who started it and when? I will discuss the goals of the mandate. I will discussion will how the Affordable Care Act ties into the mandate of Electronic Health Record. It will describe my own facility’s EHR and what steps are been taken to implement it. I will describe the term “meaningful use,” and it will discuss possible threats to patient confidentiality and the what’s being done by my facility to prevent Health Information and Portability Accountability Act or HIPAA violations.

Regulation placed upon the healthcare system only seek to improve safety and security of the patients we care for. The enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and the enactment of Meaningful Use Act the United States government has set strict regulations on the security of health information and has allotted for stricter penalties for non-compliance. The advancement of electronic health record (EHR) systems has brought greater fluidity and compliance with healthcare but has also brought greater security risk of protected information. In order to ensure compliance with government standards organizations must adapt

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

The HIPAA law dictates how our organization not only handles patient privacy and record keeping, but also how we handle patients’ request to view medical records for a variety of reasons. A patient in our organization requested to attain complete access to his records that include psychiatric records as well. Although the HIPAA law grants access to patients, there may be some crucial provisions that require special attention. I have done extensive research to provide our organization with the lawful protocols we must follow in order to protect our organization and our patient’s rights as well. HIPAA’s concise guidelines are what provide our organization and patient a clear stance on our responsibilities as well as limitations in the release

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.

Release or not to release is the question in today’s healthcare? Being a patient, and going to a doctor’s appointment has really changed versus how it was years ago. Most of us as patients know that we have a right to our own health information, but how is this beneficial to us as patients and healthcare providers? As healthcare is increasingly becoming complex what are ways to enforce these policies and rules? HIPAA rules and standards will need to be the same in each state so there is interoperability the proper way, but will we be able to really accomplish this? This paper will discuss these aspects and ways to overcome these obstacles that are occurring.

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.

The department of Health and Human Services protects and guides the health and well being of individuals here in America (Thacker, 2014). They fulfill these duties providing Americans with adequate and efficient health and human services and monitoring services designed to increase the efficiency of care in the health system (Thacker, 2014). One of the services being monitored by the department of Health and Human Services is the electronic health record system, which carries private and vital information of patient’s health record enabling all eligible participating health workers access to these records (Thacker, 2014). A breach of the protective health information of patients in a health organization creates chaos as these are against the health insurance portability and accountability (HIPAA) law (Thacker, 2014). Hence, measure will have to be put in place to determine what caused the breach and how to rectify it to ensure the breach never happens again (Thacker, 2014).

1 An employer with an employee with a job related injury can access confidential medical records without their consent. Yes, just files pertaining to the incident. I am sure that the employer, with his choice a physician and evidently his insurance reps all the medical knowledge they have would aid the employee and that is why the HIPPA privacy rule would not apply. The ramifications of this lack of privacy could only in my humble opinion switch the scales of justice in the employer’s favor.