It’s important as members of the Gainesville Community Hospital to understand what HIPAA is, how it operates, and how it affects us as healthcare providers in many ways. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 by congress to ensure the protection and privacy of patient health information whether that be in a clinic, hospital, nursing facility, or dental office. The major focus of HIPAA is making sure that as patient information that is being shared whether by mail, phone, or electronically that information that is disclosed is protected.

There is information that as healthcare providers we need to know to protect our patient rights and ourselves as the providers. HIPAA has implemented some new rights concerning health information of a patient called Protected Health Information (PHI). The privacy rule calls all “Individually identifiable health information”, PHI. We should also be aware that there is the possibility of being fined if there is a violation or breach to comply with the rules and regulations whether they are violated accidentally or purposely. If an employee violated a HIPAA regulation without knowledge of doing so than that employee can be fined 100 per violation with a maximum amount of 25,000. The maximum penalty is 50,000 per violation with an annual maximum amount of 1.5 million. No one wants to find themselves owing this kind of money and more importantly, we should care about our patient’s privacy enough to constantly be aware of how we handle their personal information. HIPAA regulations are there to protect the patient‘s privacy and the people that are involved with the patient directly are forbidden to disclose any information regarding the patient unless it’s with someone directly involved. As healthcare providers, if