Essay Example on HIPAA Act: Ensuring Patients' Privacy and Easing Healthcare Administration

Introduction

The Health Insurance and Accountability Act (HIPAA) introduction in 1996 aimed to ease the complexities in healthcare administration, minimize waste of resources, and mitigate corruption in the healthcare systems. Besides, the sole intention of this Act is to ensure the utmost protection in matters concerning patients’ privacy (Cannon & Caldwell, 2016). Resultantly, the Act is regularly updated to ensure it lives up to the task. Some of the common updates undertaken on the Act include modernization of the rules of privacy, the omnibus rules, and the rules of notification whenever there is a breach. HIPAA violation, therefore, refers to the failure to adhere to any HIPAA regulations outlined in 45CFR, particularly on parts 160, 162, and 164 (Terry, 2017). This paper aims to provide a detailed description of the effect of HIPAA violations on the privacy of a customer, the legal and regulatory policies of HIPAA violations, and essential recommendations to mitigate these effects.

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HIPAA, Legal, and Regulatory Discussion

HIPAA standards entail storage, maintenance, or transference rules essential among the concerned healthcare professionals. The rules identify those who must adhere to the regulations as "covered entities." They include caregiver plans, caregivers, and healthcare cleaning houses. The U.S. HHS and OCR Departments play a vital role in enforcing the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules. In case a given entity fails to resolve a HIPAA violation within a month, the HHS secretary determines the penalty amount that the entity should pay. These penalties are mainly between $100 and $50,000 per violation, although the figures may rise to $1.5 million, which is the optimal yearly penalty (Poirier, 2019). Additionally, the DOJ focuses on criminal violations, and penalties here are determined based on the intent level.

A breach of the client’s personal information leads to loss of trust, and further, the client can sue the organization, attracting expensive and unsurmountable penalties to the health facility. As earlier stated, the effects of HIPAA violations on a customer's privacy are far-reaching and significant (Poirier, 2019). Resultantly, it's empirical to mitigate the effects by shunning the possibilities of bleach. It is commendable for the caregivers to invest in good medical management software designed with the client's confidentiality and security. This way, unintentional violations of the HIPAA can be prevented.

Scenario Ending and Recommendations

The violation of HIPAA can occur both intentionally and deliberately. For instance, when a breach of the patient’s information occurred, it wasn't intentional. When the incidence happened, the health providers notified the HHS Department on the unintentional breach, which, despite being unintentional, attracted considerable amounts of fine. However, it's important to note that instead of risking the breach, actions can be taken to mitigate HIPAA violations.

Firstly, a risk assessment should be conducted on the information technology system on use, per the HIPAA privacy and security rules to mitigate the risks of a breach. Further, there should be constant HIPAA education to the care providers to prevent violations due to ignorance. According to recent publications, scholars reiterate that most unintentional HIPAA violations result from ignorance (Terry, 2017). Further, the clients' medical information may be encrypted either at rest or even in motion to reduce hacking risks.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Notably, there are myriads of benefits associated with the use of the appropriate technology in health care, which remains unmatched. The digitalization of the patient's healthcare has been a substantial game changer for everyone. Firstly, the use of the appropriate technology in health care aids in the ease of workflow. The feeding of information into a computerized system is much easier than the antique means of pen and paper, and further reduces the error margins. Further, appropriate technology is essential in enhancing public health. Following the HIPAA regulation and policies, the use of technology provides invaluable information to clinical researchers to extend medical knowledge and develop the treatment (Maciejewski, 2019). It is difficult to overlook that the use of technology aids in easier recognition of the expanse, severity, and dominance of a complication that helps improve health care. Additionally, there is enhanced access to big data, and information is stored better and more securely.

A cloud is an invaluable tool for the health sector (Gardner & Allen, 2019). According to the contemporary literature reviews, scholars assert that besides the typical use of storing and exchanging health information, the technology can be better used to mobilize workforces, share big data, and improve data accuracy, among other functional uses. Taking a close look at the technology used in the health sector, it is evident that the use of appropriate technology has numerous benefits in transforming the medical landscape.

However, one of the major risks of technology is the risk of hacking medical records that can lead to the HIPAA violation. In our case, for instance, with the technology, medical records can be accessed by hacking and get exposed to media, bringing far-reaching consequences on the client and organization. According to the early publications, in 2015, one of the largest medical health insurance companies was hacked, leaving roughly 80 million records vulnerable. Additionally, connectivity issues or bandwidth challenges might bring serious upshots due to overreliance on a focal data point.

Professional and ethical principles are paramount in guiding ethical behaviors (De Simone, 2019). There are many ethical principles, but the bottom line is that the codes assert that in the use of the technology, the professionals must exhibit integrity, competence, professional responsibilities, and societal responsibilities, among others. Further, it’s important to note that in the medical use of technology, other principles include: maleficence; cause no harm to others or even properties, beneficence; maintain technical competence for good patient’s welfare, and Autonomy; be keen to avoid violation of the HIPAA.

Conclusion

It is important to note that there are numerous recommendations on mitigating the breach of the client's privacy. Further, technology use in the health sector in the modern world; it is an empirical and invaluable tool. Following the insights, I have learned that when considering to shift the client's personal information to the cloud, it's empirical to comprehend the service level agreement and ensure that it complies with the HIPAA and the state's privacy laws. By ensuring that the CSP doesn't own any personal information and that data can be securely and reliably accessed, there will be positive implications for future behaviors. The knowledge will help prevent negligence and ignorance, and therefore scenarios of HIPAA violation will tremendously decrease.

References

Cannon, A. A., & Caldwell, H. (2016). HIPAA violations among nursing students: Teachable moment or terminal mistake-A case study. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 6(12). doi:10.5430/jnep.v6n12p41

De Simone, D. M. (2019). When Is Accessing Medical Records a HIPAA Breach?. Journal of Nursing Regulation, 10(3), 34-36.https://doi.org/10.1016/S2155-8256(19)30146-2

Gardner, J. M., & Allen, T. C. (2019). Keep calm and tweet on: legal and ethical considerations for pathologists using social media. Archives of pathology & laboratory medicine, 143(1), 75-80. https://doi.org/10.5858/arpa.2018-0313-SA

Maciejewski, A. C. (2019). Medical Records and Privacy Rights: The Unintended Consequences of Aggregated Data in Electronic Health Records. U. Colo. L. Rev., 90, 1111.

Poirier, A. T. (2019, April 09). HOW TO AVOID HIPAA VIOLATIONS (IT'S NOT AS EASY AS YOU THINK) - hipaavideo.net - HIPAA Compliant Conferencing. Retrieved from https://blog.hipaavideo.net/2019/04/how-to-avoid-hipaa-violations-its-not-as-easy-as-you-think/

Terry, N. (2017). Existential challenges for healthcare data protection in the United States. Ethics, Medicine and Public Health, 3(1), 19-27. doi:10.1016/j.jemep.2017.02.007