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Why Is Privacy Important In Healthcare

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The healthcare has traditionally adopted technology to improving efficiency, reduction of costs, and modernization of operations. These technologies have changed over time, with smart phones being the part of the latest technology that almost everyone owns. Although, there are many positive contributions, but also it can have many negative consequences. For example, the advent of social media and the use of smartphones have dramatically changed the way players in healthcare communicate to different stakeholders. However, while social media has been instrumental in promoting communication in the given industry, the modern technologies, such as smart phones, raise major question about patients’ privacy. This paper will emphasize the severe consequence …show more content…

One of the advanced law rulings is the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). The act was established in 1996 by the Congress to prevent and reduce healthcare fraud and abuse, promote confidential handling of protected information, and establish industrial wide standards on healthcare information and electronic processes (HIPAA Journal, 2017). The particular area of concerns for HIPAA is health insurance portability. Under this title, the HIPAA is designed to address the challenge that emerges when it comes to the transfer of health care coverage when workers lose their jobs. The rest of the titles for this legislation concern the protection and confidentiality of health information. The HIPAA regulations demand that the integrity of patient date is protected and preserved. Therefore, healthcare providers should protect their clients’ information from anticipated, identified, and impermissible disclosures in order to provide the privacy of beneficiaries. In such a way, the institution under consideration should ensure that all the employees comply with these …show more content…

I am being investigated for a picture of Jerod, the lead singer in the Blue Lizards that I innocently sent to my friend. While I send the picture innocently, I have learned that such an act amounts to breach of confidential patients’ information as captured under HIPAA. Just like many other Americans who use social media, I was documents my shift activities by sharing them with friends and family. I have always viewed celebrities as a public property. In my opinion, sharing information about celebrities should not be a major concern. However, I was not aware that as a professional, I am demanded by the HIPAA regulations to act in a way that protects the confidentiality of a patient, whether a patient is a celebrity or not. Having taken photos of the celebrity and shared the images with the friend, I infringed the privacy of the patient. Such an action has a punitive consequent for both the institution as well as the staff member. To prevent further occurrence of the rules’ breach, the organizations should adopt the following

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St. David’s South Austin Medical Center (the “Hospital”) has received a letter from John Craven, an attorney representing former Hospital patient Ramona Reeves. Mr. Craven states that the Hospital’s entering into a Settlement Agreement with GEICO Insurance Company after the Hospital’s receipt of Ms. Reeves’ “HIPPA (sic) Revocation/Cancellation of Prior Authorization” constituted a wrongful disclosure of her individually identifiable health information (“PHI”). You have asked us to evaluate whether the provision of billing information and/or entering into the settlement agreement with GEICO violated HIPAA. The answer is no.

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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

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And, should any of these individuals wanted to, Dr. could be sued for invasion privacy, attempt to benefit from one private, personal and medical information obtaining illegally since he had no business accessing the

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The walls in the office of healthcare providers are made sound proof by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). Sound proof meaning that each patient’s healthcare information can only be shared between the provider and the patient; their information is required to remain confidential by law. In 1996, HIPPA was passed by congress; the act included regulations that would help to protect patient privacy and health information (Petersen, 2001). After reading the novel, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot one may be appalled and think that what occurs in the novel is a complete violation of HIPPA. But, the time frame needs to be taken into consideration.

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HIPAA Summary In 2009, the Congress created an act called Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). It is designed when people became concern about his or her personal information being stolen. With the media growing every day, it has become easier for people to hack into computer take identities and putting others at risk. The federal government made HIPAA way to reduce company’s downfalls and financial crisis due to theft.

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The Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) of 1996 provides security provisions and data privacy for protecting a patient’s medical information. HIPAA has guidelines to ensure that a patient’s confidentiality is maintained while allowing the communication of a patient’s medical records between certain bodies or people or officials. Officials that a patient’s medical records can be shared with are other health care providers, health plans, business associates, and health care clearinghouses. HIPAA protects all “ individually identifiable health information”. There is a specific protocol to follow when sharing a patient’s medical information.

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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.

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Nurses and doctors take the oath to protect the privacy and the confidentiality of patients. Patients and their medical conditions should not be discussed with anyone who is not treating the patient. Electronic health records are held to the same standards as nurses in that information is to be kept between, and shared only with the immediate care team. HIPAA violations are not taken lightly nor are the violation fines cheap. Depending on the violation, a hospital can be fined from $100 to $50,000 per violation (National Nurse 2011 p 23).

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She was a respiratory therapist who worked at a 72-bed hospital in Oregon; Ohio called ProMedica Bay Park Hospital. She “was authorized to access individually identifiable health information and protected health information of certain respiratory patients,” not of other hospital patients (McGee, 2015). She had accessed practically 600 patients protected heath information (PHI), but it topped out at 596 patients. During May of 2014, “ProMedica began notifying the affected patients that their records were inappropriately accessed between April 1, 2013, and April 1, 2014,” many of whom were frightened and had felt uneasy thereafter (McGee, 2015). The situation was made aware to U.S Department of Health and Human Services, who has since then posted her case onto their “Wall of Shame.”

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Every organization is at risk for breach, but the difference between entities will be reflected in how they implement policies, procedures and corrective actions. For example, changes to the HIPAA rules regarding the accounting of health information disclosures expected this year have the potential to dramatically expand HIM and release of information (ROI) responsibilities and pose operational challenges. Every step within the release of information should be addressed through training, with these particular areas: front desk personnel, document identification and the pre-shipment validation. Finally, just prior to submission to the requester, release of information staff should always validate that only the uniquely authorized information has been included an that the information imported into the release of information process for disclosure belongs exclusively to that patient. If this is the case, the the release of information staff must implement and perform quality control measures to validate that another patient's information was not inadvertently imaged or indexed to the original patient's

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As records were shared electronically rules were implemented for clinicians to follow known as The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule ,2013). These rules were implemented for clinicians to protect the

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In 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Health care Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPPA history,”n.d). This particular act is better known as HIPAA. The purpose of HIPAA was not solely to enhance answerability and to speed up operations concerning “health insurance coverage,” but its purpose was to also establish clear and strict guidelines to decrease possible misuse of how health is either insured or delivered (“HIPAA history,” n.d). HIPAA also serves more than just a “privacy act.” This act serves as protection for employees and their dependents in the event that the covered individual loses his/her coverage (USDL, n.d.).

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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known as HIPAA became active in 1996. This is to allow all patients to have the right to their own privacy and having their medical records respected. This is a federal protection law of health information. This includes health care providers such as clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, and doctor offices must abide by this law. It is not limited to just the medical field but also other organizations, such as retail stores, small businesses, as well as dental offices and much more.

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Validity is one tool many use on social media and if in healthcare can be used to tell about ones day, vent or even elevate themselves emotionally. However discussing what happens on a shift is breech of confidentiality. Another danger when accessing and relaying information on social media is the poor quality of information posted and/ or relayed. “Authors of medical information found on social media sites are often unknown or are

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The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) helps Americans in keeping their quality health insurance if they happen to become victims job loss or decide to change their job. Most prominently, HIPAA provides high standards for protecting private personal health insurance information as well as creating electronic formats designed to reduce administrative costs and burden (such as eliminating the use of paper which can be costly during administrative transactions.) HIPAA impacts nearly every department of entities that have access to personal health information. HIPAA is primarily broken down into two regulation systems: 1) the HIPAA Privacy rule and 2) the HIPAA Security rule.

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