Over the course of four years I studied and worked hard to learn the rules, laws, regulations and procedures that a medical assistant will be required to know in order to work in a hospital or doctor’s office. Since then I have achieved in attaining many licenses, one of them just so happened to be my Medical Assisting license. With this license I have been able to get a behind the scene look to the works and procedures some medical offices go through on a daily basis. Every day for the past 2 months I have learned the ins and outs of two health providing facilities. One in a clinic of a nursing home, the other in a family physician office, both ran very differently and in completely different locations. I thought interning like this, …show more content…
Most rules and regulations are put in place to make the sure the patient’s confidentiality and healthcare information is protected. This keeps hospitals, insurances, clinics and clearinghouses under medical liability with patients in case if they release any information without the patient’s informed or implied consent. Once a patient creates a physician-patient relationship the patient has given his/her doctor the implied consent to be treated by that doctor. Now as the medical assistant one of our various task is to inform the patient of the doctor’s notice of privacy, these are the papers you have to read and sign to state that you understand the information, before seeing their new physician. In those papers, which most people sign without reading, tell you how your personal and private information will be used and divulged, how your information will be protected by the healthcare workers, and what you, the patient, can do if you feel that your private health information has been breached. (Association) Most if not all of these codes fall under one law, one very important law that any healthcare related worker would get fired if they violated the patients notice of privacy practice documents each patient signs. These codes fall under HIPAA which stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This law is put in place not only for health care providers but also for all health related facilities such as health
MAs acquire the skills necessary to do their job properly, professional, and with great dexterity. They realize that to become an expert at what they do, they must matter all aspects of their craft. To do this they must obtain training, education, and experience. Because most employers prefer graduates who graduated from an accredited Medical Assisting program.
. 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
Disclosing confidential patient information without patient consent can happen in the health care field quite often and is the basis for many cases brought against health care facilities. There are many ways confidential information gets into the wrong hands and this paper explores some of those ways and how that can be prevented.
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.
HIPAA as we have all learned by now stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. HIPAA mandates providers and contractors to use approved standardized code sets so as to ensure the ebb and flow of our health care system can continue to improve and become more efficient. Let's look at it another way. You have hundreds of thousands of medical facilities all coding their bills. Imagine if they all did things differently and all used different code sets how much harder it would be for insurance companies to pay out in a timely manner.
First is the privacy rule, which is meant to guard the confidentiality of all protected health information. This is defined as any information that includes the patient’s name or other identifiers, such as a birth date or medical record number. Protected health information can be data that is written, spoken, or in electronic form. The privacy rule came about because many healthcare workers have been far too willing to talk casually about their patients without thinking how this violates their confidentiality, The Final Rule modifies the Privacy Rule to extend direct liability for disclosures of PHI by business associates. However, the rule does not subject
Anything worth having will not come without its share of challenges. No career path is going to be greener on the other side. Challenges that are brought about in any career is easier to endure if it is something that one is passionate about doing. In the health care field there are several challenges that healthcare workers must face. The role of the Physician Assistant also known as PA holds great responsibility and has challenges; some of which only a Physician Assistant would face. One challenge that is specific to Physician Assistants is the question of competency by the patient. Another is dealing with the feeling of not being properly compensated. Last but not least Physician Assistance endure working long and odd hours. However when one enjoys that chosen career, they will find a solutions to every obstacle or challenge that stands in their way.
This article has shown how different issues relating to patient privacy can be tricky. There is always the question about what the right thing is to do but there are laws and regulations
As a member of a medical professional team, you will work closely with many physicians. As you have read this week, guarding the physician-patient relationship is serious business.In this assignment you will practice what you have learned in chapters 5 and 7 in the Medical Law and Ethics textbook: * Federal privacy laws that pertain to healthcare and the "Patient's Bill of Rights" * Privacy, confidentiality, and privileged communications * Filing birth and death certificates * Examples of communicable diseases which must be reported to local, state and/or federal
The elements of the principles of confidentiality can be broken down into four separate categories: (1) Information provided by the patient is kept confidential unless consent from the patient has otherwise been given—unless it has direct legal implications or endangers the general public. (2) Informed Consent: is given freely, because the correct information has been supplied and the patient has sufficient information on the impacts involved. Information is otherwise given out on a need to know basis. (3) Duty of Care: Information is given out in order to protect the safety and health of others and the patient. Legal and general public health fall under this category. (4) Documenting Decisions: Consultations and actions that lead to
Everyone is entitled to confidentiality unless they give permission for someone else to see their information or they can no longer make decisions on their own (for example, if they are confused or comatose). A federal law, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act applies to most health care physicians and its guideline, known as the Privacy Rule. The Privacy Rule sets specific rules regarding privacy, access, and disclosure of information. For example, HIPAA specifies the following:
Privacy and confidentiality are basic rights in our society. Safeguarding those rights, with respect to an individual’s personal health information, is our ethical and legal obligation as health care providers. Doing so in today’s health care environment is increasingly challenging (OJIN, 2005).
There are many regulations healthcare providers face in challenges. One is HIPAA which governs how providers disclose protected health
The first principle is that with very few exceptions, health care information about a consumer should be disclosed for health purposes only. The information should be easy to use for those purposes, and very difficult to use otherwise. The second principle is that technical security safeguards be maintained for computerized data. Including audit trails that identify who accessed the data and the prosecution against anyone who used the records for illegal or improper purposes. The third principle is consumer access. The patient should have ability to access his or her records and know others that also have access to them. Patients should be aware of the laws, regulations, and policies that protect their information. The fourth policy is defined as accountability, which is of relation to security and consumer control. Fines and imprisonment are required to those who breach security of personal health information. The final policy is public responsibility. Legislation must be balanced between personal, private interests and national priorities of public health, research, and law enforcement. The excessive flow of information, without patient authorization, is essential to the immediate discovery and investigation in public health crisis. AHIMA's acknowledgement of these five principles are abroad outline of a sensible public policy that balances personal privacy
Health information patient privacy and confidentiality can both be mistaken as synonyms. Yet, a difference exists between the two despite their evident intimacy in both meaning and function. A way to see it: privacy personal, confidentiality will always involve two parties. To better explain, confidentiality regards the safety of patient information that is in the hands of a second party (not the patient), from being divulged without permission and/or lawful admissibility to a third party; whereas privacy has to do with the actually ownership and knowledge of the information. For example, the actual collection and storage of a patient’s information involves privacy (Nass, Levit & Gostin, 2009).