'Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)\r'

'thither be population on the whole over the United States who be need to sh are their personal knowledge with physicians and former(a) medical checkup exam professionals. Fortunately the surfaceness fretting environment guarantees longanimous of confidentiality for tout ensemble of their tenuous and health-related entropy. There are several(prenominal) moves that the United States Department of health and Human go (HHS) have developed in order to meet all in all affected roles are given the prim medical confidentially that they deserve. One particularised act is the wellness Insurance Portability and right bring of 1996 (HIPAA).This act postulate HHS to develop regulations that would harbor the solitude and tribute system of received health learning. In the end two mark regulatings were published: Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifi satisfactory Health Information and The Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic saved Health Information. HIPAA is an key nerve of health care especially-when it comes to the asylum of all patients (Andrews, 2010). Due to the strict seclusion and security acts of this program, the consequences are extremely severe.One of the much important rules of HIPAA is the cover rule, which â€Å"establishes national standards to protect psyches’ medical records and different personal health learning” (Summary of The HIPAA Privacy overlook 2003). This aspect overly applies to several health plans, health care clearinghouses, and other health care offer uprs that suffice electronic health care transactions. Due to the loneliness rule, without proper patient authorization on that point are serious limits and safeguards that pr purget whatsoever whiz from sharing a patient’s medical info. other crucial part of this rule is the fact that patients have the legal right to followup and examine their health records, as well the imprimatur to request a ny corrections they see necessary to repair. This accommodates important when a patient finds incorrect development on their commove that any of the medical round failed to recognize much(prenominal) as birthdate or a blood type. Having a patient review their file is a familiar way that mistakes are corrected. In order to protect and enforce the privacy of patient medical records, there are several encompassing programs that are required through clinical breeding systems.There are three main clinical systems that were created to protect a patient’s privacy of their medical records. The first system-called patient care systems-â€Å"stores teaching around a patient’s medical history, diagnoses, and give-and-take plans” (Glandon & Smaltz, 2008). The organizations that choose to provide this care are as well answerable for making accepted that distributively patient’s medical info is addressable besides to those who are authorized to v iew it. A nonher clinical system is called Public health information systems.These systems are in charge of supporting malady prevention and surveillance programs. Protecting public health is not a simple task; it requires subtile how to properly add and store health-related information close each soulfulness. Without this system, any class of leakage of sensitive information could exceed to discrimination in manipulation or insurance eligibility. The final clinical information system, which is referred to as the medical research information system, is responsible for studying patterns of certain diseases in specific populations by using patient records.This act of studying plebeian patterns is a way to prevent the reoccurrence of any foreboding(a) diseases and protect the health of others. Due to the fact that virtually of a patients’ entropy is admittanceible to many investigators, it is important that information security measures are interpreted to provide the necessary privacy. In order to establish this aspect of HIPAA, it is important for health care companies to appoint the responsibilities of enforcing the guidelines of HIPAA to the proper unit of the health care department. Some companies believe on compliance or specific privacy offices to ensure these obligations (Glandon & Smaltz, 2008).The venerate of having no privacy underside lead to individuals avoiding treatments or clinical tests because they go through their medical records are not saved properly. This fear puts the health of others in danger and can lead to bigger and more dangerous issues in the future. The other important aspect of the Health Insurance Portability and right Act is the security rule, which â€Å"focuses on administrative, proficient and somatic safeguards specifically as they relate to electronic protected health information” (Yale University, 2013).With such critical information being stored electronically the security rule is also responsible for protecting the system against any anatomy of failure, including external tragic events that could take place randomly such as a fire or a power outage. These crucial files are normally copied to a removable disk to ensure that all files pull up stakes not be lost. This type of information can be stored in computer unenviable drives, memory cards, any kind of removable digital memory media or all transmission media that can be used to exchange information such as the internet (HIPAA, 2013).Preventing unauthorized viewing of electronic protected health information (ePHI) can become difficult ascribable to the variety of ways information is stored. Overall the major goal of the Security rule is allow the development of new technologies that ordain suspensor to improve the quality of care as well as protect all the sensitive health information that is shared and documented (Summary of The HIPAA Security predominate 2003). There are several measures that must be t aken in order to good all the different types of medical information.A proper security form _or_ system of government should involve the three following elements: physical security, technical controls over access, and management policies (Glandon & Smaltz, 2008). These elements should be know by all staff and enforced by management. When it comes to the proper amount of physical security there is no such thing as having likewise little or too much. The most leafy vegetable forms of physical security include hardware and data file security. Hardware securities defend computers from unauthorized access or viruses entering private files (Das, Kant, & Zhang, 2012).These are usually the first step of security that is taken in order to enforce the security delegate of HIPAA throughout the medical records. Another element that helps secure private files is technical safeguards. Theses safeguards include ideas that are as simple as having a password that only authorized indivi duals are aware of or even creating a specific encryption that only the employees of a health care company are able to translate. Creating audit logs is great way to view who is logged into specific patients’ information and when they did so. This enables any supervisor to have professional knowledge of who accesses what information.The final element that a security policy should provide is the enforcement of all management policies. These could include having written company security polices that are open for employees to review at any time. Making sure that all employees are aware of all security polices is important in order to ensure the safety of all medical records. These policies can be address in employee training, which is another important part of any management position. Employee training is where all questions should be answered and all policies should be understood.Employees also need to be advised of the disciplinary actions that will follow if any sort of th e management policy is broken or disobeyed. There are always repercussions when it comes to jailbreak the rules; HIPAA has several consequences due to the disobedience of the people. There is a general punishment â€Å"for failure to comply with requirements and standards” (Penalties Under HIPAA, 2013). This is the more common penalty that occurs; it requires the person who violated the rules to pay superstar hundred dollars for each violation and may not exceed $25,000 throughout a one course of instruction time frame.The other offense that includes any â€Å" wrongful disclosure of individual identifiable health information” (Penalties Under HIPAA, 2013) has a more in-depth punishment rate. This includes situations where an individual shares another individual’s health information to an unofficial person. Also, the obtainment of another individual’s medical information when it is not needed or asked for any specific medical reason is also included i n this offense. The first penalty that is sentenced in this situation is that the peach will not be fined more than $50,000 and/or imprisoned up to one year.If the offense is committed under false pretenses the violator will not be fined any more than $100,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years. The biggest penalty occurs if the offense is committed with the intention of selling an individual’s medical record for certain advantages. In this case the violator will be fined no more than $250,000 and/or imprisoned for no more than ten years. Because the information protected under HIPAA laws is invaluable and incredibly sensitive, legislators made sure to implement punishments that will hopefully deter potential wrong doers from breaking the law.Unfortunately, the severe consequences that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act endorses, does not intimidate everyone. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act is still the most effective act and it helps to protect the privacy of individually identifiable health information, as well as secure the electronic protected health information. When the proper elements to both the privacy and security rules are followed, the more successful HIPAA will be.\r\n'