HIPAA Case Study Essay

This describes the issue of violation of privacy to access personal information from medical records. The professional health workers took Henrietta’s cells from her cervical area, utilizing her body for the sake of science. It was violation and a crime. Because of these issues, it has raised the concern about hospital administrators following privacy protocol to this day. This should not have been done by medical staff, especially professionals to keep her information confidential, with no public access to her records.

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act also known as HIPAA has set a national standard for the handling of electronically stored medical records. Medical confidentiality protects conversations between a patient and his or her doctor from being used against the patient in court. It is a part of the rules of evidence in many common law jurisdictions. The penalties for violating HIPPA are based on the level of negligence and can range from $100 to $50,000 per violation or per record, with a maximum of $1.5 million per year. Violations can also carry criminal charges that can result in jail time.

I agree with you, Dr. Zhou should have clear understanding of the HIPAA law, that is part of orientation practice for everyone who has access to patient information in the health care field. For Dr. Zhou to access the patient electronic records after his termination is very alarming. Everyone agrees that his plea deal of $2000 of fine and four months in prison was a lesser punishment than what he deserves. According the HIPAA law he could spent more than 10 years in prison for his action .What is your thoughts. Don’t you think UCLA should have been liable for failing to protect the patient information.

Since HIPAA become mandatory on most of the health care organization, patient information is more secure compared to previous. Health care organization are investing huge amount of fund for safety measures to protect the patient information and i think this is the main concern in today's advanced health care

The act is meant to followed by the rules, but the state can change certain thing according to the way it believes HIPAA should be done. If someone were to commit theft, he or she would have to pay thousand in fines and be sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. The hospitals and medical institutes must call, mail, email, or use the media to inform the victims that his or her information is a risk. They will have up to 30 days to contact everyone involved or an additional 30 if he or she is having trouble finding a large number of people or if the police have to become part of the solution.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets security standards for safeguarding important patient health information that is being stored and maintained in analog and digital forms. As new technologies continue to facilitate the healthcare industry’s transition to paperless processes, health care providers, insurance companies, and other institutions are also growing increasingly dependent on electronic information systems to manage their HIPAA compliance programs. As a result, the safety and security of sensitive health data has become a major concern across the board. Security Risks and Challenges Today, health care professionals are using technology extensively in almost every aspect of the practice.

All healthcare professionals, whether it is the receptionists all the way up to the owner of the hospital, are going to have heard about HIPAA at some point in their employment. The punishment is pretty hefty, so that is probably why there are only a couple of cases with violations of HIPAA resulting in criminal severities. The legalities of breaching PHI “to a third party carries a jail term of up to 10 years in addition to a maximum fine of $500,000 if the disclosure is made

HIPAA is legislation that is mostly used in United States for the protection and privacy of the patient’s information. The medical information is protected by HIPAA whereby it ensures safe access to health and other personal information. HIPAA is therefore divided into five rules and regulations. There is private rule which ensures that all the information about individual’s health is highly protected. Private rule allows a good flow of health care information to ensure that an individual gets the best quality health care.

Now there are four categories of violations based upon the level of culpability involved in the breach. There are corresponding penalties for each category of violation with significantly increased minimum penalties. The maximum penalty amount of $1.5 million annually. As we have discussed in previous posts, the actual cost of violating HIPAA includes numerous other costs in addition to the penalty imposed by HHS. Those other costs include investigation costs, notice to patients, and the purchase identity protection coverage for the affected

The primary goal of The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is to make it easier for people to keep health insurance, protect the confidentiality and security of health care information and help the health care industry control administrative costs. HIPAA is divided into different titles or sections that address a unique aspect of health insurance reform. Two main sections are Title I dealing with Portability and Title II that focuses on Administrative Simplification. Title I allows individuals to carry their health insurance from one job to another so that they do not have a lapse in coverage. It also restricts health plans from requiring preexisting conditions on individuals who switch from one health plan to another.

1. Locate an interesting article about a HIPAA violation in which a healthcare professional breached patient confidentiality. According to New York Times Article “New York –Presbyterian Hospital has agreed to pay a $2.2 million penalty to federal regulators for allowing television crews to film two patients without their consent- one which was dying, the other in significant distress. Regulators said on Thursday that the hospital allowed filming to continue even after a medical professional asked that it stop.” (Ornstein, 2016) a. Explain how HIPAA was violated

Unfortunately HIPAA violations happen every year in our country. In fact, a situation happened in a New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center on May 7th 2010. The HIPAA violation happened after the electronic health records of 6,800 patients ended up on Google for the world to see. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who are responsible for HIPAA enforcement laws deeply investigated this case. It was discovered that a Columbia University physician who developed applications for New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University, attempted to deactivate a personally owned computer server on the network containing electronic protected health information (ePHI).

As records were shared electronically rules were implemented for clinicians to follow known as The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (Summary of the HIPAA Security Rule ,2013). These rules were implemented for clinicians to protect the

The goals of HIPAA are to ensure medical coverage scope for workers and their families when they change or lose their employments and to secure wellbeing information trustworthiness, classification, and accessibility. The objectives are also to enhance our health care framework by making it more proficient, less difficult, and less

Information should be conveyed to them in a way that they're able to understand. They also have the right to a written summary of any information that is provided to them. In general they're entitled to have access to or copies of your medical records. However, there may be exceptional circumstances in which a doctor is entitled to refuse access to the patient. If this is the case, they must be told of the reason for the refusal.