How HIPPA Violations Affect the Medical Billing Process

How HIPPA Violations Affect the Medical Billing Process

Introduction

HIPPA refers to The Heath Insurance portability Act of 1996 that legally aims to safeguard the patient's health and personal information from being openly disclosed in public. The act also increases patients accessibility to his/her own health records and personal information and also develops a national framework and set guidelines for overall health privacy protection. All the patients who suffer from HIV/AIDS or any other disease should be aware of the laws set under HIPPA to safeguard their concerns regarding the violation of their privacy and confidentiality. HIPPA has made it very easy for the patients to fight for their rights of privacy, by offering simple privacy statements during a visit or a prescription pickup.

Since there has been discovery of several viruses that lead to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus and Acquired immune deficiency syndrome, by the many doctors for example Dr. Anthony Gallo who was from National Cancer Institute in Washington and Dr. Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the issue to maintain its legality became an integral concern. There have been many controversies regarding who discovered these diseases. It has been concluded from a research that HIV/AIDS is very common in the United States and more than one million people exist in the United States that have this disease. As this disease it considered to be very contagious, HIPPA ensures to protect the medical records of the increasing people suffering from this disease.

Discussion

HIPPA influences the billing process for the security of the patients by ensuring that their demographics are kept confidential and are accurate. An authorization is required to allow a practice for the utilization of the confidential information of the patient in the patient's file. If there is no authorization then no information from the patients file can be used, disclosed or released regarding the treatment taken by the patient. Under HIPPA it is quite certain to say that a patient's information and medical records, reports, progress notes and any other clinical document are legal documents and therefore only belong to the provider, who led to their creation. However the provider is not allowed to withhold the information and clinical material in the records, till the time providing them is detrimental to the health of the patient (Roach, 2008).

HIPPA emphasizes on the rights of the patients with pre-existing condition of HIV/AIDS. The acts limits the use however does not fully eliminate the use of previous exclusions. The act also works on the prohibition of group health plans from being discriminated by the denial of coverage or by charging high and additional fees for the treatment. The act also ensures the right of the small employers, and selected individuals who lose their job-related coverage. The act also states the individual and employers who purchase a health plan can renew their coverage irrespective of any health conditions. Apart from this, many possible incarceration and monetary charges are implicated on the person breaching ...