...THE HEALTH INSURACE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT (HIPAA) Abstract This paper will explain what HIPAA is, a brief history and background of it; why it is so important, what are the rules, who is protected, who needs to follow the rules and who does not, who can see the patent information, and what kind of right the patent has. In general, this paper will cover and the importance of HIPAA, and the impacts that have on consumers and providers. This paper examines Mark A. Rothstein (2013) The Federal Register published the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) omnibus amendments to the Health Insurance Portability Act (HIPAA) Privacy, security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Keywords: HIPAA privacy and security of health care records. THE HEALTH INSURANCE PORTABILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT (HIPAA) Understanding HIPAA What is HIPAA? Department of health defined HIPAA as the federal Health insurance portability and accountability act. The objective is to make it easier for people to keep health insurance, protect the confidentiality and security of healthcare information and help the health care industry control administrative cost. HIPAA is written in 1996, enacted in April 14, 2001 and mandated in April 15, 2003. HIPAA is composed of two main rules; The HIPAA privacy rule and The HIPAA security rule. The HIPAA privacy rule provides for the privacy of individual’s personally identifiable health...
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...How HIPAA Violations Affect the Medical Billing Process HCR/220 October 7, 2012 How HIPAA Violations Affect the Medical Billing Process In this paper we will discuss how HIPAA violations affect the medical billing process and why HIV and AIDS information is more sensitive than other types of health conditions. We will also examine the social, legal, and ethical ramifications of improper information disclosure. In 1996 on August 21, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the Federal Government and signed into law by President Bill Clinton (HIPAA – The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, 2011). According to “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act” (2012), “HIPAA does the following; provides the ability to transfer and continue health insurance coverage for millions of American workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs, reduces health care fraud and abuse, mandates industry-wide standards for health care information on electric billing and other processes, and requires the protection and confidential handling of protected health information” (What is HIPAA?). The main reason HIPAA was enacted was to protect patient’s personal health information regardless of its severity. Their personal health information is just that, theirs! For that reason, among many other, it is very important to know that a patient’s personal health information is not to be shared with any unauthorized...
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...Officer (CCO) perspective on HIPAA, contemplate the three basic areas which HIT professionals must be most concerned with are: (1) Privacy Rules (2) Security Rules, and (3) Standardized transaction code sets | Write a paragraph on each of the 3 critical areas of HIPAA for a training session of your staff. Explain what they are, why they are important and how they impact staff duties and the organization. | HIPAA Rules (1) Privacy Rules: HIPAA Privacy Rules involves federal protection of individually identifiable health information and guarantees patient rights and prevents healthcare fraud and abuse. This is important to prevent identity theft (especially in the fraudulent use of health insurance) by reducing fraudulent use of patients social security numbers/birthdates, protecting a patient diagnosis and treatment and any other personal patient information (address, home/work phone numbers, place of work). This will impact staff and organization by what information can be accessed (ROI or Release of Information) by what staff and what information the organization/hospital may release to third parties whether it is another physician/hospital or insurance company. (2) Security Rules: HIPAA manadated series of rules which safeguards the integrity of administrative, physical, and technical information (EPHI- Electronic Protected Health Information).Will allow covered entities to adopt policies to improve quality of patient care. These are important especially in the use of...
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...Act, HIPAA. For the purpose of the exercise, this document will examine a typical visit to the doctor’s office. The focus will be to identify the various organizational, administrative, physical and technical safeguards that a doctor’s office should have in place to protect protected health information (PHI) as well as provide guidance in needed areas for compliance. In particular, the paper’s focus pinpoints the ePHI although all health information, written and oral should be addressed with HIPAA. The importance of protecting the confidentiality of patient information requires a synergy of effort from IT, management and staff. Purpose The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by Congress in 1996 and deals with security of healthcare information (HIPAA Administrative Simplification Statute and Rules, n.d.). The HIPAA regulations apply to health care providers who transmit any health information electronically, health plans (including Medicare and Medicaid programs), health care clearinghouses and healthcare business associates (Unknown, 2013). HIPAA defines a health care provider as a provider of medical or health services or any other person or organization who furnishes, bills, or is paid for health care in the normal course of business (Unknown, 2013). The intention is to protect the individual’s privacy and confidentiality throughout the gathering, transmitting and storing of healthcare information. The various components of HIPAA cover...
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...HIPAA Tutorial Summary Health Care Communication Strategies HCS/320 January 02, 2015 Carol Coakley HIPAA Tutorial Summary In order to for individuals to gain reasonable health insurance receive confidentiality and security of his or her healthcare information, and have the administrative costs controlled and simplified, the HIPAA law was passed as a law in 1996(University of Phoenix, 2015). The HIPAA Law gives protection to individual’s healthcare information by his or her providers and business associates. The law also gives each individual right’s in regard to their information. In this paper, the writer will summarize what was learned from the HIPAA tutorial, Why the Information is important, and how the information may be used in the future. Learned Information Information that was acquired from the tutorial was defined entities in reference to HIPAA such as health plans, healthcare clearing houses, and providers. HIPAA protects spoken, written, and electronic use of healthcare information. The entities must provide notice of privacy to each patient, obtain consent, respect the patient’s rights, and properly disclose of patient information. Written notice must be given by each healthcare provider and keep on file for at least six years (University of Phoenix, 2015). Importance of HIPAA The Importance of HIPPA is to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility. It guarantees patients access to their healthcare information...
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...This paper will look at the occurrence at St. John’s Hospital and discuss what should have been done with the patient documents, what actions, if any, should these personnel take toward the actions of the cleaning staff. Also this paper will discuss the actions, if any, that should be taken by IS for the management plan and code of conduct. Security Breach The administrative department has been notified that there was a security breach in the handling of protected client information in concerns to policies and procedures. On a number of occasions, employees who work late into the evening have seen the house keeping staff reading unwanted records. This is a direct violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Laws. These laws are put into place for patient protection. This breach of security took place in a department of restricted-access, and certainly should not have transpired. Any unwanted patient records should be shredded before being discarded in the trash. When a document is thrown away like the records were, all information is open to the public and now considered a breach of privacy. Discussing patient information in areas such as: waiting rooms, hallways, elevators where people can overhear the conversation is also considered a security breach (Hicks, Joy, 2014). Action towards the house keeping personnel The house keeping employee was observed while performing their...
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...University of Phoenix Administrative Ethics Paper Administrative ethical issues occur in health care today such as patient privacy, confidentiality or HIPAA. It is best to resolve this type of issue because patient privacy in health care is very important. These policies are designed to protect the rights of patients by making sure personal information of the patient is not disclosed in any way. Protecting a patient’s privacy by way of disclosing personal information and is not to be released without personal formal consent. Also, of employees discussing patient information on the job to people with no knowledge of the patient or even off the job. Many health care organizations enforce privacy policies such as HIPAA and confidentiality although all employees do not abide by such policies. It is being found that more frequently that people from these health care organizations are breaking these policies and their must be changes to provide patients with protection. Administrative ethical issues of the HIPAA Policy within health care organizations must make necessary changes to appropriately protect the rights of patients. The issue at hand is that of health care organizations properly protecting the rights of their patients. The article that will be discussed in this paper is that of OCR issues proposed Modifications to HIPAA Privacy and Security settings (Frank Irving, 2004). The population that is affected by it most has been impacted by such ethical issues brought upon by...
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...HIPAA Summary Leticia DelRosario Ware HCS/320 May 11, 2016 Sherry Williams HIPAA Summary When you think about all the patients’ hospitals and clinics see on a daily basis, you think about all the information that’s stored in their computers systems. You think about who all can view your information, which person can pass your information to the next provider and so on. In this brief summary you will read an overview about the meaning of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and some basic rules. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) cover a wide spread of healthcare issues. According to University Of Phoenix The Privacy Rule and Health Care Practice (n.d.), HIPAA laws are designed to protect and secure patients health care information, and simplify administrative aspects of the health care systems. The Privacy Rules protect all of its patient’s health information, it doesn’t matter if it’s spoken, giving electronically, or written. Being accountable for doing your job is very important because you have access to over millions of records and you don’t want to be in breach of violating any of HIPAA’s rules. If you find yourself in violation you will face criminal charges. If you’re working in healthcare you must comply with all rules and regulations that are asked by HIPAA laws. Moving forward once you have been properly trained you must always demonstrate trustworthiness with your fellow colleagues, so they know you...
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...Nunez-Walker HCS/335 09/08/2014 Claudia Unrein Administrative Ethics Paper A patient’s electronic protected health information is an important issue when it comes to privacy for the patients and physicians. “Communicating with patients using mobile devices such as Blackberrys, iPhones, iPads, or Android phones is fast growing trend among healthcare providers” (Barrett, 2011) . In the world today physicians and patients are using mobile devices an order to communicate with each other more and more. This of course raises distresses when it comes to the security of protected health information. This article discusses the issue on security by the use of electronic transfer of protected health information between health care providers and patients and also how those issues may cross HIPAA Security Rule. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was establish in 1996, in order to protect the privacy and security of patient’s health information. “The Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information (the Security Rule) establish a national set of security standards for protecting certain health information that is held or transferred in electronic form” (U.S Department of Health & Human Services, n.d). There are many reasons why the use of mobile devices triggers the HIPAA Security Rule. Unauthorized disclosure of protect health information is very much at risk because mobile devices can only store in two ways: within...
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...society as a whole (Austin & Boxerman, 2008). Discuss the impacts of breach to Healthcare Information systems, especially the financial and privacy impacts. Some of the most devastating security breaches can occur during employee termination when steps are not taken to remove access to resources in a timely manner. HIPAA guidelines specify that when employees are terminated, that certain steps, at a minimum, must be followed. These include changing locks, removal from access lists, removal of user account, and confiscation of keys, tokens and other access cards. Though these steps may seem to be common sense, some organizations may not have documented procedures to follow when an employee is terminated. Additionally, the responsibility for carrying out the termination procedures must be clearly assigned and documented (SANS Institute, 2001). Security Training In order for a security program to work well, the employees must be educated insecurity practices such as password protection, monitoring login failures and other basic practices. A well-educated workforce can become an extension of the security group of any organization through simple awareness. The HIPAA regulations require a Security Awareness training program that includes: awareness training for all personnel, security reminders to the workforce, virus...
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...regulations on privacy of health information. The how, why, and to who information was shared was less scrutinized, which allowed people to inadvertently gain access to information that was not necessary. There are very specific rules for who and when it can be used, discussed, shared or disclosed. These rules are outlined in various Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) (Codington-Lacerte, 2014). HIPAA is a set of standards that are used across the nation in an attempt to protect personal health information (Summary, n.d.). HIPAA uses the term covered entities to include entities that would not need a release signed such as health care providers, health plans, and healthcare clearninghouses (Summary, n.d.). The basic assumptions with HIPAA is that all personal health information (PHI) is kept to only those who need to know and is not disclosed to anyone. The values and beliefs associated with this concept is simple in that the primary goal is to limit how and when PHI is released. To do this HIPAA policies include information regarding the minimum necessary requirement. The minimum necessary requirement is defined as steps taken to limit the PHI to the minimum necessary for the intended purpose (Minimum, n.d.). Opportunities and obstacles associated with a HIPAA policy include understanding what is covered under HIPAA and setting up safeguards to ensure the requirements are followed. HIPAA has great opportunities to help increase confidentiality...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper Kerri Love HCS/335 October 21, 2014 Jennifer Hilkert Administrative Ethics Paper Patient privacy is a very important aspect to all businesses within the health care field. Whether businesses like it or not, there are strict guidelines that everyone has to follow regarding patient privacy. According to the Department of Health and Human Services (2014), “the HIPAA Security Rule outlines national standards designed to protect individuals’ electronic protected health information that is created, used, or maintained by a covered entity.” Businesses have to be careful about what they share with their employees through any type of electronic media because it can be saved. It is important to remember that all patient health information is covered under the HIPAA rule and the HIPAA security rule. Both of these rules help protect patients’ privacy whether it is in a file or electronic format. There are many things that could happen if either of these rules is breached. If the information is through electronic medical records, it can easily be stolen if there are not enough guidelines set up to protect the information. Hackers like to be able to hack into the system and steal any information they can. If a business has their information stolen, it is important to make sure they file a grievance and take the necessary steps to render the situation. If they do not make sure they do what they are supposed to do, they can be fined a lot of money regarding...
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...Profession Responsibilities This paper will discuss the federal law that governs Protected Health Information (PHI) and the elements of compliance that must be met. This paper will also describe two examples of improper privacy disclosure and some challenges a medical office might have maintaining strict confidentiality. The federal law that governs Protected Health Information (PHI) is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 ("Summary of the,"). HIPAA’s goal is to simplify the administrative processes of the healthcare system and to protect patients’ privacy ("HIPAA compliance,"). The Privacy Rule of HIPAA plays an important role being that it was designed to protect personal information as it travels through the healthcare system. The organizations that must comply with this rule are providers, payers, and healthcare organizations. HIPAA has standards that every organization must comply with including administrative procedures, technical security mechanisms and services and physical safeguards ("HIPAA compliance,"). For example to comply with administrative procedures healthcare organizations must implement policies and procedures in their workforce to ensure security of electronic protected health information to only those who are authorized and prevent those who are not along with performing periodic evaluation of the entity’s security policies and procedures. An example of compliance in the technical security mechanisms and services would...
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...in recent years, and this cyber exploitation has resulted in an unprecedented loss in private data. The threats to our networks and systems exist across numerous components that include end user devices, servers, and infrastructure devices. This summary is to examine the threats to routers and other network infrastructure devices in a Lan-to-Wan domain while considering HIPAA rules and regulations. There are key points to understand when trying to establish network security, those basic points are; * Protect Confidentiality * Maintain Integrity * Ensure Availability It is also imperative to keep in mind that all networks need to be protected from threats and vulnerabilities for a business to achieve its fullest potential. The most common threats and vulnerabilities are some of the following; * End-user carelessness * Misconfigured hardware and/or software * Intentional end-user acts (i.e. A disgruntled employee) Now, to fully understand what HIPAA is. HIPAA is the acronym for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that was passed by Congress in 1996. HIPAA provides the ability to transfer and continue health insurance coverage for millions of Americans and their families. It also reduces health care fraud and abuse, mandates industry-wide standards for health care information and electronic billing and other processes, and requires the protection and confidential handling of protected health information. Considering we have...
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...Administrative Ethics Paper By William Keyser HCS/335 4-26-11 Susan Morgan When developing an effective strategy and rewards compensation plan one must produce a policy that executes the plan successfully. The Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) laws allows the human resources professionals to hire the high qualified staff by selecting the right candidates for interviews, and giving the best job offers without discriminating against any candidates. Affirmative Action prevents discrimination among race, creed, religion, and sex. According to State of South Carolina (2009), “Affirmative action is an effort to develop a systematic approach to eliminate the current and lingering effects of prior discrimination. It is a race and sex conscious effort to achieve equal employment opportunity for all race sex groups in a workforce. Then with the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) it prohibits specific types of job discrimination in certain workplaces, and they are a independent federal...
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