Penaltiess For HIPAA Violations

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.

This is due to the regulations and impositions of rules and laws that have gone into affect under a law placed into effect by Congress and the Dept. of Health and Human Services. If you are unfamiliar with HIPAA, it is highly advisable to research HIPAA and know how this law effects YOU! It does and will effect all personnel in the healthcare industry in some form or fashion. Sanctions and fines are quite hefty for those who violate the laws. (see course 106 for more on HIPPA)

The penalties for violating the rules dictating by HIPAA are complicated because the guidelines are still very broad and the rules are still so new that with each case new standards are being set as to the way violations are being handled. Violation of HIPAA rules can result in civil and criminal consequences. There is case that marked history as the first health care organization to be fined for a HIPAA violation. Cignet Health in Maryland was fined $4.3 million for two violations: failure to provide patients a copy of their medical records within 60 days of a request and failure to cooperate with civil investigators. “HIPAA calls for civil and criminal penalties for privacy and security violations, including: -- fines up to $25K for multiple violations of the same standard in a calendar year -

Under the HIPAA compliance audit program if a healthcare organization has attested and is later audited and found not to be compliant with HIPAA, the organization could face penalties including giving back the meaningful use incentive money. (Goedert, 2013) provided the following ways to ensure compliance: conduct mock audits, make sure all data within the organization is encrypted, computer access is logged, network security gaps have been filled, policies and regulations have been updated and expanded, and most importantly that all staff complete annual HIPAA training courses with emphasis on privacy and security.

Specific Purpose: I want to inform my audience about HIPAA “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act”.

HIV and AIDS are two very serious diseases which first came known and reported in the U.S. in 1981. Today it is estimated that 1.7 million people in the U.S. have been infected with HIV since that date 619,000 people have already died from it. The CDC, (Center For Disease Control) estimates that every one in five people living with HIV, are unaware that they even have it. With a serious medical condition such as this, it is good that the HIPAA privacy act exists because the privacy of every patient’s medical information, including any information about AIDS and HIV, will be protected and is to

In any medical office the medical professionals have to be very careful not to violate HIPAA laws. To make sure these violations don't happen the MA needs to make sure that:

As of September 29, 2017, it has come to my attention that there have been a few issues within the clinic. The following has been resolved and prioritized in order.

According to CMS rules, Medicare beneficiaries’ paper health records cannot be destroyed. They can only be eliminated if there are certified digital copies available electronically. The imaged records of the paper form must be exactly replicated and the steps of scanning the original documents into digital format must be detail noted. The healthcare organizations and providers must keep the digital documents in readable conditions that allow easy access. Also, the digital copies must be tamper proofed from editing or manipulating. CMS requires patients’ records, which were submitting for reimbursements by providers, to be kept in their original or legally replicated forms for five years after the closure of the reimbursements. Moreover, CMS

Upon hearing the case on several violated privacy rules of HIPAA Act of 1996 by Cignet Health of Prince George’s County, MD (Cignet), the HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found the accused guilty of breach of privacy. A civil money penalty (CMP) of $4.3 million was imposed on the company due to the violations identified by the Office of Civil Rights. This civil money penalty was the first one to be issued on any entity by the Department for violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. The amount of penalty imposed was determined by violation category and may increase if authorized by the HITECH Act section 13410(d). Cignet did not request a hearing when notified on the civil money penalty and therefore, its right to appeal against the imposed penalty is no longer viable.

If Kaiser Permanente did not take steps to quickly resolve the issues within the group and organization they might face a HIPAA violation. HIPAA Violators can be sentenced for up to 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000 in criminal penalties for failure to comply. In addition, civil penalties can be imposed that include $100 per violation and up to $25,000 per person, per year for each violation (DMA.org, 2002).

The federal HIPAA legislation law was enacted on August 21, 1996 created by Congress. HIPAA stands for the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act . HIPAA was thought of as congress began to recognize the importance of protecting private health information. The act fulfills the purpose to provide health care coverage and simplify administrative functions within the health care industry. The accountability portion of the act is made to ensure the security and confidentiality of patient information. The HIPAA act has provided many benefits for patients and hospital staff.

"HIPAA doesn?t necessarily prescribe the solutions, but it does require physicians to look at all of the ways that they use and access data today and determine whether that?s reasonable or not." to help you begin your HIPAA compliance process, following are some practical ideas for rethinking how you maintain and use patient information in your office. Appoint one or two staff members (depending on the size of your office) to review the HIPAA act, determine the changes your practice needs to make, and decide if you?ll need outside help. To keep this project manageable, do not wait until the last minute. Remember: most of the healthcare industry will have to be HIPAA compliant by April 14, 2003. Furthermore, compliance is not optional. Those found in violation of the act will be penalized: "Civil penalties range up to $25,000 per violation of each standard. Criminal penalties range up to $250,000 in fines and/or up to 10 years in prison."3

A violation of HIPAA rule carries fines for breaches ranges between $100 to $50,000 per violation.

There is so much that can be done to prevent breaches, such as reviewing and verifying your BA’s relationships whenever you change vendors or share levels with a vendor. There are certain levels of fines, such as, not knowing of a breach resulting in one-hundred to 50,000; had reasonable cause to know being $1,000 to $50,000; willful neglect,$10,000 to $50,000; and willful neglect, not corrected from $50,000 to the cap of 1.5 million dollars. Other possibilities for breaches occur when there are new hires that aren’t trained in HIPAA procedure, or in any of the procedures that are used by the