Pros And Cons Of Medical Breaching

The three incidents that were described showed that proper HIPAA education is essential for any work in the medical field. Compliance to the laws will prevent huge fines and decrease any company losses. Also, patient privacy will be

The penalties for violating the rules dictating by HIPAA are complicated because the guidelines are still very broad and the rules are still so new that with each case new standards are being set as to the way violations are being handled. Violation of HIPAA rules can result in civil and criminal consequences. There is case that marked history as the first health care organization to be fined for a HIPAA violation. Cignet Health in Maryland was fined $4.3 million for two violations: failure to provide patients a copy of their medical records within 60 days of a request and failure to cooperate with civil investigators. “HIPAA calls for civil and criminal penalties for privacy and security violations, including: -- fines up to $25K for multiple violations of the same standard in a calendar year -

In the health care business, there are certain standards and laws that have been put in place to protect our patients and their personal health information. When a health care facility fails to protect their patient’s confidential information, the US Government may get involved and facilities may be forced to pay huge sums of money in fines, and risk damaging their reputation.

Under the HIPAA compliance audit program if a healthcare organization has attested and is later audited and found not to be compliant with HIPAA, the organization could face penalties including giving back the meaningful use incentive money. (Goedert, 2013) provided the following ways to ensure compliance: conduct mock audits, make sure all data within the organization is encrypted, computer access is logged, network security gaps have been filled, policies and regulations have been updated and expanded, and most importantly that all staff complete annual HIPAA training courses with emphasis on privacy and security.

According to both HIPPA and HITECH, an organization must have policies and procedures in place to enforce data storage integrity. This means the organization must take measure to protect healthcare information from an unauthorized user and there must be a way to successfully retrieve any and all patient information in the health information system. By doing so, the organization is ensuring integrity, inadvertent disclosure and availability of their records (Hawkins, 2013).

If one violates one’s privacy they are looking at very costly civil violations. For unknowing violations, one’s privacy, you will owe $100 per violation and $25,000 for a repeat violation. For violation HIPAA for a reasonable cause, it is $1,000 per violation with $100,000 for repeat violations. As for willful neglect but the violation is corrected within a certain time period it is $10,000 per violation with $250,000 for a repeat violation. Lastly, someone could owe $50,000 per violation and up to a maximum of $1.5 million for a repeat violation that is not corrected within the required time period (Brown,2014). As if that doesn’t seem to get any worse someone is also looking to facing criminal penalties when violating these laws. For individuals who knowingly violate HIPAA laws they can face up to a year of imprisonment. With someone who has the intentions to sell someone’s information to another individual can face up to ten years in prison (Brown, 2014). When starting a job in a hospital all employees are required to sign their understanding of the HIPAA laws for that hospital. Many hospitals require certain training and in-services to provide understanding of the laws and its importance in the hospital setting. If HIPAA is violated most hospitals let the employee know in the paperwork that they sign that they will be terminated immediately.

Whenever any healthcare personal violates the HIPAA policy the punishments can be minor to server. The individual who bleaches privacy of any medical records the punishment can be verbal warning without further punishment the individual doesn’t violates the rules and regulation. If the individual in question violates the rule or regulation the individual can be place on probation, suspended without pay until further notice. Some one can be signed to look over you and check out all what you do on regular basic as you work. If you have authorization for high level clearance documents, it would be stripe from whoever violated the rules and regulations.

Let’s analyze about financial impact of HIPAA violations in healthcare companies and find out how to prevent security breaches. Patients and healthcare facilitators both need to be informed on how to help these companies be protected and be prevented from identity theft. Also, there will be emphasis on what the penalties are in result to violation of HIPAA

In any medical office the medical professionals have to be very careful not to violate HIPAA laws. To make sure these violations don't happen the MA needs to make sure that:

Hospital and health facility administrators face hardened criminals who hack medical records with ever-increasing sophistication. Hackers gain access to critical information, such as medical claims, financial data, Social Security numbers and credit card data that enable identity theft, credit card fraud and other privacy breaches. One of the major security failures in the news was the CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield attack that exposed 1.1 million of its members to thefts of their personal information.[1] Combined with high-profile breaches at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross, the breach illustrates the changing role of medical administrators

6. A breach of confidentiality can result in what consequences for a health care professional? The penalties for violating HIPAA range from civil penalties of up to $100 per person per incident for minor improper disclosures of health information, and up to $25,000 for multiple violations of the same standard in a calendar year. Federal criminal liability for improper disclosure of information or for obtaining information under false pretenses carries sanctions (fines) of $50,000 and one year in prison. The liability for obtaining protected health information under false pretenses with the intent to sell, transfer, or use the information for personal gain or for a malicious action, such as Medicare fraud, carries penalties of $250,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. Severe penalties are in effect if lax security allows health information to be stolen. There is also a risk of a class action suit as well as public relations damage to the institution’s or physician’s image.

A violation of HIPAA rule carries fines for breaches ranges between $100 to $50,000 per violation.

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).

In light of available security measures and their widespread acceptance within the information security community, there is no excuse for healthcare organizations to fail in fulfilling their duty to protect personal patient information. Guaranteeing the confidentiality and privacy of data in healthcare information is crucial in safeguarding the data of patients as there should be a legal responsibility to protect medical records from unauthorized access.

The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.