Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

What Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act?

HIPAA was the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, passed by the US. HIPAA safeguards medical data. It converges how personally identifiable information in medical records can be used and divulged.

The objective of HIPAA, namely to enable workers who change their employers and carry over their health insurance, is one goal of the law. The portability provision of health insurance helps people to maintain their insurance policies and, by the same token, prevents continuity in care and health access to vital therapies.

HIPAA also obliges information owners, custodians, and workers to follow every PHI privacy and confidentiality rule. Encryption, access limitations, and comprehensive risk assessment are musts for ensuring the confidentiality of patient's confidential health information. Individuals might configure or erase the wrong information from medical reports using the staff-assisted processes designated under the privacy rules of HIPAA.

Example

HIPA is practically something that exists in real life. So, EHRs and the healthcare industry going digital are examples of how the rule works. Before HIPAA, paper health records could be stolen, or unlawful access could be made thereto. On the one hand, the Privacy Rule of 2003 gave the country a set of national specifications legally binding for health records and personal information.

HIPAA mandates the security of ePHI on the part of healthcare providers and other covered organizations. This encompasses handling access restrictions, ciphering, and audit trails that track the operation of patient information.

With the advent of HIPPA and electronic health records (EHRs), most medical offices, hospitals, and healthcare institutions in the United States are equipped with these records. This amendment rapidly adjusted the availability and accuracy of patient charts and even protected patients' data.