HIPAA Compliance Policy

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a set of national standards created for the protection of health information; it is also known as a “Privacy Rule”. This rule was employed in 1996 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to address the use and disclosure of an individual’s health information as well as the standards for the individual’s privacy rights to understand and control the manner in which their information is used.

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.

I ensure I follow practices of ensuring security by using correct storage of records ensuring that no one can hear confidential information for example phone calls , handover , returning records to the correct storage place, not removing records from the work place , signing records out. Also reporting any issues and following appropriate disposal

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

What the HIPAA law states. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a law that was enacted in 1996 establishing safeguards and rules to protect patients demographics and medical records. These rules limit the circumstances of how health records are used or obtained without the patient's authorization. HIPAA has set national standards that require these safeguards to maintain the attainability of health records and keeping them classified. This rule applies to any institutional and noninstitutional providers and only a written authorization by the patient will allow any use of their health records be disclosed.

According to Michael Moore,” health care should be between the doctor and the patient. If the doctor says something needs to be done, the government should guarantee it gets paid for.” I strongly agree with Michael Moore’s statement about how health care needs to be confidential. If anything should be done, then the federal government are the ones to offer it. Health information is to help doctors understand their patient’s medical issues, but there are some cases where patient’s medical records are shared with unknown people. Can medical facilities trust their employees with the health information of a patient?

I do think that HIPAA is more compliant in regards to electronic records because from its beginning concept it was known that health data was going digital. I think because of that knowledge it has been a main focus in its development through the years. Yes, I do believe that today HIPAA does protect my personal and healthcare records more so than 5 years ago because of the January 2013 HIPAA modifications. As stated in the article, these modifications implemented changes that increased the HIPAA sanctions and enforcements to include the business associates and subcontractors of the healthcare organizations. This is important because it stated that 20% of all breaches are caused by business associates. This means that they are now held to the

The government has also ensured compliance with HIPAA by implementing the HIPAA audit. The focus on specific controls such topics as policies and procedures to ensure privacy, confidentiality of the PHI of patients and evaluation of the action plans of the violation of security. Other security measures, including background checks of employees, all internal restrictions on the availability of private information and physical security measures to determine if they comply with the guidelines established by the HIPAA

In the past, small medical offices were sometimes not as up on HIPAA as they should have been, but that has been changing. The Internet is helping to ensure that even small providers are up to speed on this vital piece of legislation that protects the privacy of their patients. Complying with it also protects their medical business. Here are a few ways small providers are working hard to comply with HIPAA:

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.

The HIPAA regulations define security as the health care providers are accountable for maintaining the confidentiality of individually identifiable health care information or the Patient Health Information(PHI). Excretion of the HIPAA Security Rule surrounds the following three vital shields for PHI in electronic form

In order to minimize the risks for potential privacy breaches, the health information management (HIM) director has to understand all facets of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). This should include conducting an audit of their practices. In this scenario, an audit would have been useful to detect the improper access by the employee sooner. HIPAA uses both its privacy and security regulations to “protect consumer’s health information, allow consumers greater access and control to such information, enhance health care, and finally to create a national framework for health care privacy protection” (Amaguin, n.d.). These privacy and security regulations serve as the “only national set of regulations that governs

There are laws in place that protect a patient in the health care setting. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 or HIPAA, as it is known in the healthcare field, was designed to protect the privacy,confidentiality and security of patient information (Pozgar, 2013).Employees the health care field are very aware of HIPAA and the rights of their patients. All staff knows that patient information can only be discussed with qualified individuals on a need to know basis. Speaking about cases outside of work is strictly prohibited. Photography or recording of any patient interaction is also a breach of a patient's rights as well. The problem with this is that there are many policies in place to protect the

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.

This report is in response to the various security and maintenance problem this company has experiencd over years. I propose to study the problem and develop a baseline defense in handling procedures for personnel using computers and the local area network (LAN).