HIPPA: Healthcare's Federal Legislation & State Laws - Essay Sample

Introduction

The legislation is the act of making new law. Every sector in the industry has its sets of laws that help govern the daily activities and various endeavors of each sector. The health sector, which is wide and sensitive has the HIPPA (Health, Insurance, Portability, Privacy and accountability act) which was introduced by the federal government in 1996, and has undergone various amendments. However, different states have their laws that help in governing in terms of privacy policies, and the HIPPA legislation has been adopted across the divide by the various enacting entities.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The health, insurance portability, privacy and accountability act was passed into law by the government in the year 1996( Phipps,2007).The federal government enacted the HIPPA legislation with the intent that it promotes and ensures continuity of health coverage insurance of employees even after they left their places of work. This was the original intent of the health, insurance, portability and accountability act. However today, the health, insurance, portability, privacy and accountability act has various goals that include, ensuring the continued health insurance coverage for an employee and their families in case of job loss or change in their occupation, protect the health data, confidentiality and integrity of all patient health records at all times. The HIPPA law addresses three major components like a company's policies, record-keeping ability, technology and building safety. All these components represent major parts of the operation, and therefore it requires that all employees in a given company are kept aware of these laws and therefore work hand in hand to protect patient's data at all costs.

According to Phipps (2007), information is power. Therefore confidentiality is taken with high regard, especially on data containing information about a person. This is no different to the patient confidentiality required by the HIPPA legislation act from the health practitioners. The health, insurance, portability and accountability act requires that the health practitioners need to conceal a patient's medical information, keep it confidential and consistent with the patients preferences Security in this regard is implemented by safeguards such as the administrative, which requires specifics terms of operation, the technology which supports the electronic media through which the data is stored and the physical which entails all the other employees responsible for patient safety and patient data safety. The patient has the right to order for the disclosure of this said medical information. The privacy rule requires that all the entities covered by HIPPA shall have to be accessed by their respective owners, who in this case are the patients upon their request and in all the form they request to the information. The patient has a right to access and obtain their own medical information from all the designated records covered by the entity. The privacy rule, therefore, helps protect and regulate the use and disclosure of all the protected health records of an individual by all entities.

However, under the health, insurance, portability, privacy and accountability act, there are certain individuals and organizations that are allowed to have access to one's medical information like employers and health insurers. Family members, loved ones and caregivers can also directly get the information but with a consent and permission letter from the owner. The patient remains the owner of this medical information and has all the legal right to have and obtain copies of all his/her medical information (Phipps, 2007).

All medical records are, however, are subjected to breach at one point or the other. A violation, when it occurs threatens the security and the privacy of all the information contained in the storage medium for this specific patient. It interferes with the value attached to the protected information and could attract a legal lawsuit for the company who issued the owner's details without their prior consent. The information entails a patient's age, sex, photo, date of birth, email address, social security numbers, contacts and insurance ID numbers. This personal information is known as individually identifiable information that describes and contains an individual's personal information that is used in general identification of this particular person and any other relevant information supporting a person's health status and condition. In the event of a breach of data, under the breach notification rule in the HIPPA act, the patient whose information has been leaked is to be informed as soon as possible. Patient confidentiality is imposed in all states by laws expressed by that very state, but all are guided by the federal governments HIPPA Act.

Conclusion

In conclusion, records are a vital part of people's livelihood. Medical health records play a significant part, and thus, confidentiality promotes a person's safety, trust for the organizations and promotes general wellbeing. Breach of this privacy rule attracts a lot of negative attention to the insuring organizations that could result in constant lawsuits. Therefore the Health, insurance, portability and accountability act helps to ensure that in whichever medium the information is stored, be it electronic, on paper or oral the privacy rule should be maintained at all times.

Reference

Phipps, J. (2007). State of Confusion: The HIPPA Privacy Rule and State Physician-Patient Privilege Laws in Federal Question Cases. Suffolk J. Trial & App. Advoc., 12, 159. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/155f/5432976118eea9837deec7d01954bd23700d.pdf