HIPAA Laws

Introduction

There are several human resource issues that are wide spread throughout different work forces, but one that is unique only to the medical field is H.I.P.A.A., the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy and Security rule. The HIPAA Privacy rule protects the privacy of an individual's personal health information and provides federal protection for personal information and only permits the disclosure of personal information needed for patient care and other important issues. The HIPAA Security rule sets a national standard for the security of health information through a series of administrative, physical and technical safeguards for covered entities to ensure the confidentiality of an individual's health information. HIPAA provides several rights to a patient in regards to personal information.

Every health care provider who transmits health information is a covered entity, regardless of size. Health care providers include all providers of services (institutional providers such as hospitals), providers of medical or health service (non-institutional providers such as dentists, physicians, and other practitioners) and another other person or organization that furnishes, bills or is paid for health care. Health care transactions health providers may be a part of include claims, benefit eligibility inquiries, or referral authorization requests. The Privacy rule converts health care providers whether they electronically transmit transactions directly, or uses a billing service or third party to do so on its behalf.  The purpose of HIPAA is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care systems by standardizing the exchange of data (Brown, 41).

HIPAA in the House of Representatives passed, 421-2. August 21, 1996, President Clinton signed into law, HIPAA Act. HIPAA scan with any federal legislation that would be confusing. In the rise of health care, cottage industry, pepper and fairs of HIPAA and HIPAA lawyers, HIPAA consultants and other forms of HIPAA privacy, security, IT experts are inhabited. Too much, especially in the early years, there is a panic trafficking fair share, as the implementation date of the law and comply with the deadline to go (Brown, 41).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandated that entities develop specific transaction standards, including code sets, security and electronic signatures and unique identifiers for employers, health plans, and health care providers. All of these mandations are in place to protect patient privacy and preserve quality health care. Prior to the start of Jamie's second year of pharmacy school the students were once again required to take an online course on HIPAA, which was formatted similar to the previous year, with quizzes at the end of each section. Jamie said it was a nice refresher to take that course again because it reinforces the importance of HIPAA and builds on her currently knowledge of how to she'll be exposed these regulations on a daily basis as a pharmacist (Austin, 2002). 

HIPAA Rules

HIPAA authorized the Department of Human Services to enact, though its rule-making authority, detailed standards and requirements to protect the privacy. The Privacy Rule went into effect on April 14, 2003. This rule created a minimum national threshold ...