When examining the case of the State of California against Dr Zhou, we can clearly conclude that the HIPAA law of which was convicted of violated is not just words written on paper to buy patients' confidence, it is meaningful law set in place to protect patient privacy and any ones violating this law, regardless of your position in the health care field can be persecuted punished for violating the law, even in the absence damages evidence resulting from the violation of the law. The purpose of this post is to discuss the case of the State of California against the physician, Dr Huping Zhou, in this post I will review the HIPAA law, penalties for violation of the law and why I felt that Doctor Zhou was very fortunate for his punishments four
When examining the case of the State of California against Dr Huping Zhou, we can conclude that the HIPAA law is a meaningful law set in place to protect patients’ privacy, and any one violating this law, regardless of your position in the health care field can be persecuted, punished for violating the law, even in the absence damages evidence resulting from the violation of the law. The purpose of this post is to discuss the case of the State of California against the physician, Dr Huping Zhou. In this post, I will review the HIPAA law, the penalties for violation of the law and why I feel that Doctor Zhou was very fortunate to receve the punishments four months in prison and just $2000 in fine. As a physician, a researcher of UCLA School
This time also they sell all their junk to the third party. This time the breach was occurred due to the improper disposal of the hardware and the negligence of the IT employee. With this second breach of the HIPAA violation the HHS imposed $50k fine on the clinic and the hospital administration fired the employee and HHS imposed a fine of $10k on the
As a result of HIPPA Privacy Rules the processes of the healthcare has changed. The HIPPA Privacy Rule may now supersede state laws. At first the Privacy Rule was only a federal floor or minimum of privacy requirements so it does not preempt or supersede, stricter state statues or other federal statues. The word stricter refers to state and federal statues that provide individuals with greater privacy protection and gives individuals greater rights with the respect to their personal health information.
The act is meant to followed by the rules, but the state can change certain thing according to the way it believes HIPAA should be done. If someone were to commit theft, he or she would have to pay thousand in fines and be sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. The hospitals and medical institutes must call, mail, email, or use the media to inform the victims that his or her information is a risk. They will have up to 30 days to contact everyone involved or an additional 30 if he or she is having trouble finding a large number of people or if the police have to become part of the solution.
A person who is under the belief that the Privacy Rule is being broken can file a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR). However, unfortuanlety, the OCR has a long queue and many complaints don’t go answered. .the agency has gotten over 23,000 complaints related to medical-privacy rules, but it has not yet taken any enforcement actions towards said hospitals, doctors, insurers or anyone else for rule violations. A PR rep for the agency says it has closed around 3 quarters of the complaints, typically because it found no infrgiment or after it provided informal navigation of the rules to the parties involved. However, in July of 2011, UCLA agreed to pay $865,500 in a settlement regarding
The ethical principles and theory above are examples of why the HIPAA regulations need to be amended to address the use of genetic information. If HIPAA regulations include the release of genetic information, the uniformed sister can be aware of her possible genetic mutation. However, with the current HIPAA policy Mrs. Smith’s genetic information can only be released with her consent. HIPAA 's current policy does not seem fair regarding the uninformed sister’s circumstances. Nurses and doctors are expected to care for their patients to the best of their ability, but with the current HIPAA policies their duties are
When it comes to a patient that does not speak English the first thing we have to do is find someone capable and a professional to translate, complying with all the HIPAA regulations are being taken care of and not violated. Whether it is a live person, over the phone service or if available online. We cannot ask a family member to serve as a translator because we might break the patient confidentiality if the patient does not want anybody knowing his diagnosis and the procedures being done to them. With a deaf patient first we have to find out what is the best way to communicate with the patient if by reading lips always face them forward so they can read our lips, speaking clearly so they can understand a little better what we are trying
Congress enacted HIPAA to help ensure that patients were getting the health coverage needed and patients were getting the privacy needed. Before HIPAA was placed there were a small amount of regulations that enforced the safe handling and privacy of a patient’s information. It became apparent that the medical care industry would become more cost effective by computerizing medical records because of this they needed to come up with new standards regarding the handling and management of health care data. With this they included rules regarding the protection of a patient’s right to have medical privacy, the transfer of medical information as well as the establishment of a patient.
All healthcare professionals, whether it is the receptionists all the way up to the owner of the hospital, are going to have heard about HIPAA at some point in their employment. The punishment is pretty hefty, so that is probably why there are only a couple of cases with violations of HIPAA resulting in criminal severities. The legalities of breaching PHI “to a third party carries a jail term of up to 10 years in addition to a maximum fine of $500,000 if the disclosure is made
Electronic Health Records and Patient Confidentiality Technology has become an essential part of our everyday life therefore, it makes sense that doctors and hospitals get rid of the old fashioned paper charting and use technology to access patient records. Electronic health records (EHR) provide quick access to information, as doctors no longer have to wait for other providers to fax previous records to them. The accessibility of Electronic Health Records assist medical providers to make quick medical care decisions, by accessing previous care provided to patients including treatment and diagnosis. Quick access to information through EHR enables health care providers to treat patients faster as there is no need for records to be mailed or
The HIPAA rule is built to protect and prevent disclosing individuals’, and consumers’ identifiable health care information unlawfully and without getting authority from the concern parties. If someone break the law, individuals are subject to civil penalties of $100 on each violation but the penalty can accumulates based on numbers of violations; the standard maximum limit of civil penalties is $25,000 each person, each year (HIPAA Privacy Rule – What Employers Need to Know, n. d.). As per stacking rules, if a person violated two HIPAA standards, the penalty can be $50,000; Similarly, the criminal penalties subject to maximum of $ 250,000 and ten years in prison can be imposed to those individuals and parties who disclosed protected information
New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center finally agreed in 2014 to pay a settlement of $4.8 million dollars for HIPPA violations that happened in 2010 (McCann, 2014, para. 2). The violation involved patients’ electronic health records data being found on Google. According to McCann (2014), “the HIPPA breach transpired when a CU physician, who developed applications for NYP and CU, attempted to deactivate a personally-owned computer server on the network containing ePHI’ (para. 3). Because the hospital lacked technical safeguards, the patients’ electronic health records were be able to be accessed once server was deactivated. Because the institutions were fined a record setting of $4.8 million dollars,
CAL. FAM. CODE § 6926 (2012). DIAGNOSIS OR TREATMENT OF INFECTIOUS, CONTAGIOUS, OR COMMUNICABLE DISEASES; CONSENT BY MINOR TO CERTAIN MEDICAL CARE; LIABILITY OF PARENTS OR GUARDIANS (a) A minor who is 12 years of age or older and who may have come into contact with an infectious, contagious, or communicable disease may consent to medical care related to the diagnosis or treatment of the disease, if the disease or condition is one that is required by law or regulation adopted pursuant to law to be reported to the local health officer, or is a related sexually transmitted disease, as may be determined by the State Public Health Officer.
Not to mention termination from their present position. The hospital system has to repair its damaged reputation while at the same time prepare to defend itself against potential civil/criminal lawsuits. There are too many incidences were an organization is liable for HIPAA