The core ingredient of HIPAA objectives is to protect the privacy of medical patients.
The medical information of the patients, according to Dash, are safeguarded and against unauthorized parties.
So, only those who have the authority can access the information for any sensible reason.
Now, coming down to the question, what does HIPAA protect, anyway?
HIPAA laws protect patients’ health information which is stored in the HIPAA covered entity or business associate’s bodies.
Dash also mentioned the identifiers as issued by the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.
There are 18 identifiers in total for the relevancy. These identifiers subject to the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Rules.
Ones who are compliant with these are facing serious charges.
So, what kind of information that the HIPAA law protects? The items are solely coming from the patients, who are the parties whose data need to be protected. So, giving out any of those items will violate the HIPAA rules for sure.
The Information which is Protected by the HIPAA:
- Names
- Addresses
- Dates (birthday, death dates, admission dates, discharge dates, etc)
- Phone numbers
- Fax Numbers
- Email addresses
- Social Security numbers
- Medical record numbers
- Health plan beneficiary numbers
- Account numbers
- Certificate numbers
- License numbers
- Vehicle identifiers
- Websites
- IP addresses
- Biometric identifiers (fingerprints, iris, retina scans, voice prints, etc)
- Photos identifiers (close-up, or any other forms which point to the patient identification)
The Protected Health Information or PHI has restrictions of uses. The PHI is only used based on the HIPAA Privacy Rule.
That means only authorized users are eligible to retrieve and make use of the information.
If ones disclose the information to unauthorized recipients, there will be charges against them for violating the rules.
The penalties can be granted for the individuals or covered entity, depending on the results of the investigation.
The health entities and professionals are eligible to use the PHI – protected health information for health care premises, treatment activities, as well as the billings and transaction in the healthcare services activities.
The third parties might get to see the information for the mentioned purposes.
The HIPAA privacy rules ensure the courteous relationship between the recipient covered entity or business associate as well as the disclosing parties.
Therefore, to be transacting the information, all of the involved parties should in the form of covered entity.
That means a covered entity can only share the PHI with other covered entity.
What ties between the two parties is the treatment relationship with the patients and the PHI. However, the giver will only be able to disclose the necessary information.
They have the obligation not to present all of the things on the table. If the PHI is to distribute to business association, then the two parties must meet the agreement.
The minimum necessary standard needs to be applied to give both parties the benefits. To conclude, the information should be given in the sense of portion that is limited to the purpose of use.
HIPAA does not forbid all of the other uses of PHI. Ones can use the PHI for marketing or commercial purposes.
But the disclosure of the health information is not as easy as turning the palm.
The key to using the PHI for any other purpose should get full consent from the related parties. That means the doers should attain the HIPAA authorization from the patient.
They must get the patient’s consent in writing. Covered entities and business associates can use the PHI data for specific purposes as permitted by HIPAA.
Confidentiality and Privacy
HIPAA ensures the confidentiality and privacy of protected health information. HIPAA creates a national standard in protecting the patients’ medical records. With the HIPAA privacy rules will contribute to these things:
- Granting patients the right to manage their health information
- Assuring the protection to sensitive data
- Sharing the responsibility of distributing and managing the medical information
- Violation preventions by making use of the penalties
- Setting the good boundaries on harnessing the health data
Whether you are professional, or other concerned parties, you might wonder how significant the HIPAA is in your field.
This would be relevant to all healthcare entities and organizations which manage their patient health information. They are all expected to be compliant to the HIPAA law to protect the privacy of their patients.
HIPAA regulations ensure the privacy, as well as reduce the risks of irresponsible activities over the leveraging the patients data.
While business associates treat the health services as their business, it is safe to have the common ground that the HIPAA compliance will save them a lot of resources and money in the long run.
It is important that all the parties involved should be compliant to the HIPAA law. HIPAA has many rule parts to understand, including the Privacy Rule and the Security Rule.
The HIPAA law applies to the health entities which have both physical documentation of their patients health data and the electronic version. Many health providers have migrated to the electronic options.
The healthcare providers we mentioned do include the hospitals, clinics in every scale, physicians, pharmacies, psychologists, practitioners, as well as others as informed by Dash. If you want to cut to the chase, consider Dash as your partner in it.
How HIPAA can benefit the Patients?
The HIPAA protect the data from unauthorized individuals.
Only authorized personnel are able to access the health data with a good porton. HIPAA also protects the privacy of the patients by limiting the uses of the health information.
Under the HIPAA assurances, the patients are also eligible to issue copies of their health information. After all, they have the right to know and understand what’s really happening with their health condition.
The covered entities should be able to provide copies for their patients. HIPAA also ensure the security of the data storage.
Since the data is transferred electronically, HIPAA can help the concerned parties to protect their data.the data will remain intact so that the individuals can rest assured that the health providers can protect their privacy and secrecy.
