Hipaa Essay

HIPAAAbstractThe Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or better known as (HIPAA) began in 1996 as an Act to help individuals keep their health insurance as they moved from wiz job to another. As the forthcoming brought in the raw advancements HIPAA evolved to include much more than portability. HIPAA now includes m either composite plant rules to protect affected role privacy a eagle-eyed with the use of information technology that transfers aesculapian checkup records.HIPAANearly a decade ago, lawmakers tried to combine the older succession ethical tradition of patient privacy with newer age health technology advances, in hopes of saving more lives and reducing such high medical costs. telling intention of the HIPAA Privacy Act was to bring the health supervise industry into the 20th century, while saving U.S citizens billions of dollars.As health care technologies advance so does the rules, sort outs, and regulations of HIPAA. Its substantial to know the ins and outs of HIPAA and these new advancements. Having a guest verbalizer for HIPAA helped me learn and realize these new advancements, a long with what HIPAA really stands for, the rights of patients, and what a despoil is and how to prevent it. In the words of the guest speaker, HIPAA equals privacy. Each letter in HIPAA stands for and explains exactly what the Act is. The letter H in HIPAA stands for health, the health of the patient. I in HIPAA stands for insurance, the availability of health plans for the patient. The P in HIPAA stands for portability, its portable. A is for accountability, they are accountable for here actions. And finally the in conclusion A in HIPAA stands for act, the action of carrying something out. All of these letters may make up HIPAA but its important to know what they actually mean and stand for. After learning the patient rights from the guest speaker I call it makes up the most important part of HIPAA. Knowing your rights under HIPAA can sav e you from dread in the future. The first right of HIPAA is The Right to Access, how you the patient can approaching their health information and pick up copies of their health information.The second patient right is The Right toRestrictions which gives you the right to restrict certain disclosures of your health information. some other important patient right to HIPAA is The Right to Amendment, it gives you the right to request on amendment to your health information. The next right is The Right to Accounting of Disclosures, this right makes sure your request on accounting of disclosure made on your health information is met. The next patient right is The Right to Complain of Privacy Rights Violation, which I think is the most important. It gives you the right to complain if you feel that your health information has been used or disclosed inappropriately. The last patient right the speaker talked about was how the patients health information us used and disclosed. Which allows many slipway on how your health information is used or disclosed in regards to treatment, payment, and health care operations. excessively patient rights of authorization to release medical or health information and the right to revoke authorizations. As you can see at that place are many rights that the patient has. These rights ensure that patients get the right care in regards to health and how medical records are stored. Even though these rights protect patients there are tranquil major problems that can happen. One of the major problems with HIPAA is a breach. A breach is the unauthorized access use, or disclosure of protected health information that compromises the privacy of such information. According to the HIPAA guest speaker, penalties for a breach can equal up to 1.5millon a year. For individuals found guilty of breach, penalties can be up to $100,000 per year, per impact and or up to ten years in prison. You may be wondering how they decide if there is a breach. So me expulsions to breach that the guest speaker informed us of are unintentional access or use of health information. Only if that information accessed was made in a good confidence within employment and the information was not further accessed or used, it is not considered a breach. Another exception of a breach situation is child abuse. Law Enforcement must collect medical evidence to check up on and prosecute a possible child abuse case. Along with Law Enforcement Officials, Social Services in any case have HIPAA exceptions so they can serve victims of abuse, neglect, and domestic violence.A breach in HIPAA can be very serious, so its important to practice good prevention precautions. Some of the guest speakers tips on preventing a breach were locking files to secure important papers. Also securing areas that have any healthinformation, so provided the people who are authorized have access to them. Not only do health care workers take precautions to avoid a breach, but so doe s HIPAA. HIPAA officials do haphazard checks on health care patients in different facilities to ensure that only the authorized workers had access to their medical records. One of HIPAAs main goals are to protect the patients privacy. Taking these precautions as a health care worker can prevent any complications regarding HIPAA and most importantly patient privacy. Having a guest speaker come into class helped me understand more concepts of HIPAA I didnt understand. She taught me what HIPAA is really about, patient rights, and how important it is to prevent a breach. Learning more about HIPAA will help me in my future career. HIPAA will directly affect my future, as I am currently going for a medical assistant degree. But HIPAA doesnt just affect people going into the medical field it affects the patients. therefore it is important for everyone to learn and understand the importance of HIPAA.ReferencesLaw and Ethics (For the Health Professions) 6e (2013). HIPAA. Pages From74 To 7 6 http//www.uthscsa.edu/hipaa/patientrights.asphttp//www.ndaa.org/ncpca_update_v16_no4.htmlhttp//hipaacow.org/http//www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.htmlhttp//www.hipaa.com/