The Health Information Portability And Accountability Act

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (HIPAA) is a national act that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The Act was meant to establish standards that are to be applied nationally in dealing with the medical records and also other personal health care information by all the stakeholders. The rule calls for proper care in disseminating medical health information and sets minimum requirements that must be adhered to before the documents can be transmitted. It also set the scope of information that can be distributed without prior authorization by the patient. This rule gives the patient power to access medical information and allow them even to make copies as per their needs. HIPAA facilitates health

The mission was to promote the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology to improve patient care by evaluating utilization and maximizing efficiency as established in subsequent federal regulations. In addition, HITECH Act addresses the privacy and security concerns associated with electronic transmissions of health information with several civil and criminal enforcement provisions of the HIPAA rules.

HIPAA compliance and technology use: In 1996 when Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted HIPAA compliance and the use of technology was not given that much importance as it is today. Only small percentage of people owned mobile phones twenty years ago which didn 't have a lot of capabilities of communicating except the basic text messaging. Twenty years later the mobile device technology is much advanced and has much more capabilities and much faster than imagined. Advanced capabilities include messaging, internet access, e-mails and ability to take pictures and be able to send using the mobile device.

Explain how the recommended system meets Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements. HIPAA of 1996 brings compliance requirements that require significant challenges for healthcare providers. HIPAA has five separate Titles and is colossal (United States Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.). The Administrative Simplification requires the formation of national standards for HIE transactions and nationwide identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers (United States Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.). The Administrative Simplification also addresses the security and privacy of healthcare information (United States Department of Health & Human Services, n.d.). The criteria are meant to improve the quality and efficiency of America’s health care system by encouraging the widespread use HIE.

According to McMillan (2011), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Critical Health (HITECH) Act was passed in 2009 to addressed privacy and security concerns related to the electronic transmission of patients’ medical records. Furthermore, the HITECH Act which has sanctioned programs intended to improve healthcare quality, safety, and efficiency using health information technology (health IT) has raised some legislative and ethical issues. McMillan stated that the HITECH Act broadened the range of privacy and security protections provided under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to include notification of security breach; education of health information privacy; and holding business associates liable,

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is a law that was passed in 1996 that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule set national standard for the protection of individually identifiable healthy information by three types of covered entities: health plans, health care clearinghouses, and health care providers who conduct the standard health care transactions electronically. The Security Rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act sets national standard for protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health insurance. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Enforcement Rule provides standards for the enforcement of all the Administrative Simplification Rules. Individuals, organizations, and agencies that meet the definition of a covered entity (health care provider, health plan, health care clearinghouse) under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act must comply with the Rule’s requirements to protect the privacy and security of health information. (Office for Civil Rights, 2015)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability act of 1996 or HIPAA, was put in place as an attempt to reform health care during the Clinton administration by making it possible for   workers, of any profession, to change jobs regardless if the worker, or any member of their family, have a pre-existing medical condition, decreasing paperwork which is associated with the processing of health claims, and by reducing health care abuse and fraud, and by assuring the privacy and security of health information. HIPAA’s standards for privacy of individually identifiable health information or privacy rule includes restrictions which protect the

Learning about patient rights in healthcare is fascinating because of the laws associated with electronic health record (EHR). the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the he Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 are the two main policies on individual electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) in regards to EHR and non-EHR scenarios.

When dealing with electronic health care information, the United States federal government has acknowledged that there is a need to protect the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of that information. This need has been codified within the Code of Federal Regulations as the Health Insurance Reform: Security Standards of 2003, part of the overall Security Rule contained in the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Although the federal rules detail the need for the protection of health information, Professor Fue and Professor Blum in 2013 extended the need to ensure that security is built into other systems that affect individual’s health (Fue & Blum, 2013). Although there is no explicit requirement for architecture called out in Fue & Blum’s analysis, architecture is a necessary requirement to ensure the existence of the level of security needed by these systems affecting individuals’ health.

If any of these covered entities shares information with others, it must establish contracts to protect the shared information. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is Protected Health Information (PHI) that:

Ong (2011) notes HITECH provisions increase the civil and criminal enforcement of the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Breach Notification rules that address the privacy and security concerns associated with transmitting health information electronically. According to Ong (2011), under HITECH business associates must now fully comply with HIPAA requirements that prohibit disclosure of confidential protected health information (PHI). At the time Congress passed HITECH, protection for the privacy of health information was imperative especially with the HIV/Aids epidemic. Moreover, the adoption of EHRs by healthcare providers was only minimal according to Ong (2011). Additionally, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that the number of Americans

It is the covered entity responsibility to determine the compliance of the business associate. As for the contract, if the business associate does not provide such a document the covered entity can consider the business associate in HIPAA violation

HIPAA was crafted to provide patients and their representative similar access to collected medical data. HITECH is an amendment and clarification for HIPAA focused on incentivizing the transfer to electronic medical records for medical providers.

Covered entities are made up of 3 sections which are, health plans, health care clearinghouses, and, health care providers. This of who is required to electronically transmit health information which has been stated in the HIPAA privacy rules. Covered entities may be recognized as a variety of different organizations, institutions, or persons. A health plan is provided by a variety of organizations such as, health insurers and health maintenance organizations (HMOs) that provides or will pay the cost of a person’s health care. Health care clearinghouses rarely ever come into contact with patients, if not ever, clearinghouses stand as an invisible factor for the most part. Health care clearinghouses are in place to transmit information between other important members in the health care system. Health care providers are licensed professionals who are legally allowed to provide health care for patients. Included in the list of health care providers, but not limited to, are, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc. While the formal definition of a health care provider is much more complicated, it creates an idea of those who are able to provide their health care services.

In 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) provision was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). It was created to help strengthen and reinforce the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) which protects a patients’ health information, as well as uncover fraud in the health care system. With the creation of HITEC Act, there was a push created for the implement of Electronic Health Records (EHR) among providers. With the HITECH Act comes stronger penalties for neglect, fraud and abuse. Breach notifications are required as well as allowing patients and some third parties to be allowed to access their own personal health information (PHI).