HIPAA Breach Notification Report

US Congress created the Hipaa bill in 1996 because of public concern of how their private information was being used. It is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which Congress created to protect confidentiality, privacy and security of patient information. It was also for health care documents to be passed electronically. Hipaa is a privacy rule, which gives patients control over their health information. Patients have to give permission any healthcare provider can disclose any information placed in the individual’s medical records. It helps limit protected health information (PHI) to minimize the chance of inappropriate disclosure. It establishes national-level standards that healthcare providers must comply with and strictly investigates compliance related issues while holding violators to civil or criminal penalties if they violate the privacy of a person’s PHI. Hipaa also has boundaries for using and disclosing health records by covered entities; a healthcare provider, health plan, and healthcare clearinghouse. It also supports the cause of disclosing PHI without a person’s consent for individual healthcare needs, public benefit and national interests. The portability part of Hipaa guarantees patients health insurance to employees after losing a job, making sure health insurance providers can’t discriminate against people because of health status or pre-existing condition, and keeps their files safe while being sent electronically. The Privacy

HIPPA- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, this act establishes national standards to protect Individual medical records and health information. The HIPAA regulations apply to the following entities: health care providers who transmit any health information electronically, health plans (including Medicare and Medicaid programs), and health care clearinghouses. These security standards are implemented to protect Personal Health Information (PHI) that is either stored or transmitted electronically. Use of Internet and electronic devices to store this PHI creates new vulnerabilities; all such risks are to be eliminated stands as a major objective of HIPPA security compliances

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 standardized healthcare industry rules and regulations for the safe and secure transmission of medical information. The Department of Health and Human Services has responsibility for HIPAA controls.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a set of national standards created for the protection of health information; it is also known as a “Privacy Rule”. This rule was employed in 1996 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to address the use and disclosure of an individual’s health information as well as the standards for the individual’s privacy rights to understand and control the manner in which their information is used.

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

A process within healthcare that has changed as a result of HIPAA is medical information security. The laws have been tightened more. Privacy audits can be done with covered entities if they have had complaints, or even if there have been none. In the event of high-profile incidents, privacy audits can be done also. The privacy rule has also changes as a result. The privacy rule affects 3 different situations in which private health information is handled, use, disclosure, and request. Because of the minimum necessary standard, healthcare providers and covered entities have to limit the use, disclosure, and requests to only the amount of information necessary to complete this.

Although HIPAA (Health insurance portability and accountability) is a standard for health care providers nationwide, there are rare instances in which HIPAA is violated. There are a number of ways HIPAA can be violated. HIPPA’s Privacy Rule applies only to covered entities – health plans, health care clearinghouses, and certain health care providers. The rule requires covered entities to obtain satisfactory assurance, in writing, form its business associate that the associate will appropriately safeguard the protected health information. Before delving into examples of HIPAA violations, let’s review HIPAA Regulations and laws.

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

HIPAA and HITECH Act help address several problems associated with inappropriate use of healthcare information by authorized users. HIPAA requires minimum necessary infor-mation to be released while HITECH goes into a little further detail but still to release minimum necessary information. Several different organizations need to define how they go about han-dling inappropriate use of information. A guideline must be set within the organization on who will have access to the information and how it is disbursed to other healthcare organizations re-questing records.

Legislation related to use of technology to comply with HIPAA requires insurance companies, health care providers, employers insurance, to implement administrative, physical and technical safeguards for protecting the confidentiality of patients information which prevents a breach of ePHI. If a breach of ePHI occurs, Healthcare providers, employers, third party service providers and insurance companies are liable for

Many healthcare professionals and organizations have not been following the regulations set forth by HIPAA. Whenever violations of HIPAA’s privacy or security laws occur the organizations responsible must be held accountable resulting in a fine or penalty. Penalties provide incentive for organizations to guarantee patient privacy and security. Recently, certain people have failed to follow through with the laws and restrictions and were forced to accept the penalty. This paper will provide three real examples of such HIPAA violations as well as solutions or ways each violation could have been prevented.

Ten years ago after much challenges and questionable skepticism, the HIPAA policy became effective and has been shaping healthcare one regulatory policy at a time. The evolution of the HIPAA privacy act helped establish the HIPAA Security Rule which was published in 2003 and became effective in 2005, and then eventually led to the HIPAA Enforcement Rules and the Breach Notification Rule. With it joint fortification of the 2009 HITECH Act and HIPAA’s modifications to regulations, it was released in January 2013 to the industry (American Health Information Management Association, 2013).

Have you ever wondered how your information was so protected in doctors’ offices, or hospitals? Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act helps protects your private information. There are many different stages that make up the HIPAA law, PHI, security, privacy, and the HITECH law helps it run smoothly.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was formed in order to protect patients. It was developed in order to keep patients health records private and to give patients rights when it comes to their healthcare. One would assume that health insurance companies would fully comply with and ensure that this policy is upheld when it comes to their customers. With technology making so many advancements so quickly this privacy act should be more easily enforced than when it was first brought into practice in 1996. However, in July 2017 the health insurance company Aetna had a huge privacy breach. More than 12,000 patients were exposed for taking HIV

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA is a statute endorsed by the U.S. Congress in 1996. It offers protections for many American workers which improves portability and continuity of health insurance coverage. The seven titles of the final law are Title I - Health care Access , Portability, Title II - Preventing Health Care Fraud and Abuse; administrative simplification; Medical Liability Reform; Title III – Tax-related Health Provisions; Title IV – Application and