HIPPA Compliance Report

HIPAA Article Review and Evaluation Ashlie McWee HCM 515: Health Law and Ethics Colorado State University-Global Campus Dr. Trellany Thomas-Evans February 28, 2016 HIPAA Article Review and Evaluation 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

Advanced Information Management Western Governors University February 21, 2016 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

The HIPAA Disaster 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

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is related to the privacy of patients when it comes to their medical records and health information. It controls how the information can be shared with others. Without HIPAA, patients are more wary of sharing information with their health care providers, which influences the care they receive. Every patient is asked to sign a HIPAA form when seen by a doctor to ensure they understand that their information will only be shared with relevant parties. Relevant parties could include family members and law enforcement depending on the type of problem.

HIPAA is the Health insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It became law in 1996. The original intent was to help employees change jobs and keep their health insurance by making their coverage portable. Later, on April 14, 2003 lawmakers broadened the law to include the Privacy Rule. Protected Health Information(PHI) is a HIPAA term, it includes all medical information of an individual. All patients health information is protected no matter what form it is in. PHI can be controlled in many forms such as backup disk or tapes, insurance statements, lab reports, prescription forms, patient form, email, etc. Five steps to comply with the Privacy Rule are:

In his Modern Healthcare article, “HIPPA Hurdles”, author Joe Carlson exclaims his concern for the new rules set in HIPPA that will be put into place this month. HIPPA is a set of measures, and laws, that healthcare provider’s take to ensure they are “safeguarding” patient’s health information (Carlson 2013). Carlson is speaking up for most healthcare providers when he describes his distaste for these new provisions in the Omnibus HIPPA Final Rule. The main issue in these provisions states that providers will have to “Honor requests from patients to withhold sensitive records from insurance companies if the bills are paid out of pocket.” (Carlson 2013). He asserts that the reason this will become an issue is because no one has the technology to simply safeguard one hospital or doctor visit from insurers, and that their own technological programs compile everything together and make this request difficult. While this new rule may be helping out patients, it will be causing more hardships and possible punishments when the healthcare providers forget or are not able to do as the patient asks. By grabbing his audience’s attention through appealing to our logic and emotions, Carlson does succeed in informing us about these new concerns.

HIPAA, (Health Insurance and Portability Act of 1996) outlines rules and regulations and the rights of patients to access their healthcare information such as, notifications of privacy practices, copying and viewing medical records, and amendments. This paper explains why confidentiality is important today and discusses recourses patients can use if they believe their privacy has been violated. This paper will also discuss criminal and civil penalties’ that can occur for breaking HIPAA privacy rules.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act know as HIPAA, formally known as Kennedy-Kassebaum Bill, went into law in 1996. The purpose of HIPAA is to help people import and export their health insurance, and move their medical records from one healthcare company to another. HIPAA created a system to protect the privacy of people’s medical records. This process is time consuming but gives patients an additional level of security to their medical records.

I have not directly worked in a medical record setting before. The exposure I do have as a customer service representative at a medical group is accessing patient’s demographics, eligibility, billing information for claims, and authorizations for future services/procedures. I usually make changes to a members' address or phone number

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.

In chapter 8 I learned that HIPAA is rules for collection, use and disclosure and personal health information. It Applies to all health information custodians (HICs) in Ontario and to those who receive PHI from HICs. However, it further excludes organizations that are not HICs. For example, employers and insurance companies that receive data from individuals. In all but few cases, HICs have to obtain consent to collect, use and/ or disclosure PHI. It further allows for people to access and request the correction of their PHI. Consumers are allowed permissions on whether health information can be used or shared for certain purposes, such as for marketing. They are allowed to get reports on when and why health information was shared for certain

Today, healthcare professionals diligently work to follow patient confidentiality and HIPAA standards. In chapter 10 in the section titled “What are the obligations to patient under HIPAA” was intriguing. All healthcare professionals have a moral and legal responsibility to the patient under The Health Insurance Portability Act (HIPPA) of 1996, when HIPPA was enacted by congress and signed by Present Bill Clinton in 1996 as a law. Most in healthcare were skeptical on how this law would impact the system. Also, people questioned if HIPAA would actually make any improvement in privacy protection for the patient. The HIPAA Privacy Rule has helped to create a culture of compliance within today’s healthcare. Initially, healthcare professionals

HIPPA- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, this act establishes national standards to protect Individual medical records and health information. The HIPAA regulations apply to the following entities: health care providers who transmit any health information electronically, health plans (including Medicare and Medicaid programs), and health care clearinghouses. These security standards are implemented to protect Personal Health Information (PHI) that is either stored or transmitted electronically. Use of Internet and electronic devices to store this PHI creates new vulnerabilities; all such risks are to be eliminated stands as a major objective of HIPPA security compliances

Last week it was reported that 500 patient records had been compromised. Our IT Security department has done an extensive audit and concluded that there are many issues with our security system regarding the protection of our patient’s privacy. Outlined below are some issues that were found and how they are going to be addressed going forward.

There are more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the United States. Of those, the National Center for Charitable Statistics estimates that over 170,000 are in the health related sector. Many of these health services nonprofits are currently unaware that HIPAA laws apply to them. This leaves nonprofits vulnerable to not only audits from the Department of Health and Human Services but to actual breaches of data that will affect your patients and clients.