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HIPAA Research Paper

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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known as HIPAA was first signed into law on the federal level in 1996. Since it was signed into law it has had a huge effect on patient’s privacy, healthcare workers and even insurance company’s. “HIPAA is intended to improve efficiency throughout health care and requires that health care providers adhere to standardized national privacy and confidentiality protections.” (OMA p .236). It’s an invaluable tool that has created a standard of compliance across the healthcare field. HIPAA has given patients the legal right to not only see and copy their medical records, but it also gave them the ability to correct the information as well. It has made it so that an employer can’t use a current employees or future employee’s healthcare information against them. Insurance providers can no longer stop patients from receiving insurance based on pre-existing conditions. The laws set in place by HIPAA has had both a positive …show more content…

A child has been injured and has been rushed to a hospital by the child’s mother’s boyfriend. Once the mother arrives the doctor ask to speak with the mother privately. The mother allows the boyfriend to come and hear what the doctor needs to say. While the doctor is talking the boyfriend needs to step away to answer his phone. When he comes back the mother and doctor are both gone. The boyfriend walks over to the nurse who was there while the doctor was speaking with the child’s mother and ask the nurse to fill him in on what he missed. That’s when the nurse repeats everything the doctor had told the child’s mother. The nurse actions caused a breach in HIPAA laws because the mother never gave consent for her boyfriend to receive healthcare information regarding her child. The nurse could have avoided that HIPAA violation by telling the boyfriend she is sorry, but she can’t give him that information and to ask the child’s mother

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