HIPAA At The Workplace
Categories: HIPAA, HIPAA Guide
Written By: admin
All employees who work in organizations with regard to health care should have complete awareness regarding HIPAA and they should all the steps and precautions which are needed to ensure that they comply with all the rules and regulations, which come under HIPAA. In case any organization faces any difficulty in understanding the rules and regulations, which come under HIPAA, then they should immediately consult a lawyer. A complaint should be filed for any person or organizations to be prosecuted under HIPAA.
HIPAA is the health insurance portability and accountability act. This was enforced in the year 1996. This act will take extra care to ensure that all the medical information of patients is kept confidential. All administrative operations in the field of health care will also be made much more simple and this will also help in the reduction of costs as well as reducing the administrative work load. Though the word “reasonable” has mentioned many times in the contents of HIPAA, the employees of all health care organizations should take all the possible reasonable steps so that the medical information of all patients can be protected. Small medical health care centers do not have to take the same precautions as large health care centers and hospitals. There will be no regular inspection of health care facilities in order to check their compliance regarding health care regulations. A complaint will have to be filed with the office of civil rights and they will investigate the complaint further. The fines for non-compliance regarding rules and regulations will also be very high.
The medical information regarding every patient should be kept extremely confidential and private. The files and medical records of every patient should be kept safe and locked in a secure place and anyone who needs to access these files should have the required authorization. Charts of patients should not be left carelessly around where some unwanted entity could gain access to it. When enquiries regarding a patient are being made by telephone, then it should be done from some place where no one else can overhear the conversation and where the wrong information will reach the wrong ears. When medical records of patients are being removed from a particular location, then a proper record should be maintained and every record, which is being removed, should be signed off and accounted for. If a box is being used for the transportation of medical records from one location to another, then the box should be marked “confidential – medical records”. If the medical records of patients are being viewed through a computer then a screensaver should be used so that only certain people will be able to view all the patient records.
When the data or medical records of patients are being transferred in an electronic format, then all the correct procedures and practices should be followed. All the health care services, health care professionals, bulling services and clearing houses should take the right amount of security measures to ensure that the medical records of a patient are stored in a confidential and secure manner and no one can gain access to this information without the necessary authorization.
