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Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
[Students Name]
[Course Name]
[Due Date]
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Introduction
The health insurance and accountability act, abbreviated as HIPAA, was initiated and
became law in 1996. The act was developed to set the standards concerning the patient's medical
information protection countrywide. It ensured that the patient's information was well secured
and could not be disclosed without consent and knowledge. This aims to protect fraudulent
activities and ensure health information is secure by minimizing access to health-related data to
only authorized personnel (Solove, 2013). An additional component of the act was to ensure the
people between jobs had insurance coverage. The absence of the act made the workers
experience a widespread loss of their insurance coverage whenever they found themselves
between jobs. In ensuring the citizens have optimal health, there was the need to ensure they
have access to high-quality health care services (Rosenbloom et al., 2019). This led to the birth
of HIPAA through the United States Health Committee to maintain a high level of health care
standards while ensuring the prominent role of healthcare is transformed to ensure a healthier
nation.
HIPAA has had a significant influence on the delivery of health care in the country. For
instance, it has ensured that healthcare providers, plans, and entities covered by HIPAA adopt a
significant number of ways to safeguard and ensure that sensitive information is protected. It is
common knowledge that all organizations want their client's data secure. They ensure the
vulnerability is limited to maintain the confidence of those that they serve (Solove, 2013).
Nonetheless, the absence of HIPAA would mean there is no requirement for the entities to ensure
the data is secure, and the inability to ensure it is secure would attract no repercussions.
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The act laid the platform through which all the organizations in the healthcare sector were
required to ensure the control of healthcare data, restrict who has access to the data, and those
with who the information can be shared. It ensures the information accessed by healthcare
stakeholders or developed and stored information is placed under strict regulations. The citizens
are granted control of their individual information, who can access it, and who they would like to
share with. The act has been significant for patients who assume an active role in health services
and want their healthcare information (Cohen & Mello, 2018). This is because, even though
organizations take careful consideration and care when recording health information, they can
still make mistakes.
When a patient obtains a copy of their description and prescription, they can pinpoint
errors and ensure the mistakes denoted are pointed out and corrected. The access to health
information by the patients ensures that whenever they seek treatment in new healthcare centers,
the information can be accessed and ensure the tests done previously are not repeated. Having
the patient's medical history can aid the new healthcare providers in deriving informed decisions
concerning the status of the patient and the care they need (Rosenbloom et al., 2019). When the
HIPAA was not in control, the healthcare organizations did not have any obligation to ensure the
patients had a copy featuring their health information.
HIPAA has had significant positive and negative impacts in the process of healthcare
services provision and advancement of the sector. Positively, it has allowed the patients to have
easy access and use of their medical information. This is achieved through the provision of the
right to obtain copies of their medical records where they are able to identify errors and
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consequently have corrections made. Significantly, it ensures the patient's information is secure
and can only be utilized for healthcare purposes. Since this is achieved through technologies, the
policy ensures that an audit trail is established, providing a possibility of identifying and
authenticating people who access and modify the information at their different capacities,
ensuring accountability and transparency in the process (Cohen & Mello, 2018). This has
developed a culture of compliance while helping in the development of better security in the
sector, which applies both electronically and physically. In a nutshell, the policy elevates
individual privacy in medical records and decision-making while alleviating discrimination.
Patients are able to contribute to their medical file invoking a new industry that aids the work of
medical professionals irrespective of their centers.
Negatively, the policy has imposed significant barriers to medical research that involves
people as it prohibits the access of data. Such studies can be facilitated only when the patients
release their information. Inability to access readily available information has raised the
recruitment costs for medical studies considerably. Besides, the provision of healthcare faces
significant bottlenecks as patients' information cannot be shared without the patient's consent
(Solove, 2013). Without the patients go ahead, critical information cannot be accessed, and in the
process, patient care is impacted negatively. Essentially, health entities stare at legal costs for
their failure to address the act's privacy provisions. In the process, the organizations may
completely not share patient medical records. Ultimately, the standards set by HIPAA are futile
to implement, leading to rules misinterpretation (Cohen & Mello, 2018). This has resulted in
inconsistent applications yielding distorted procedures between healthcare centers and
consequently the delivery of care.
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The policy can pose significant barriers that may hinder its core component of ensuring
data privacy and workers' protection in its current state. I recommend the removal of several
aspects of the policy that hinders the ability of health care professionals and healthcare centers to
facilitate easier coordination with other centers and consequently ensure enhanced care to
citizens at a reduced cost (Moore & Frye, 2019). Easier access to patients' information can lead
to better-informed decisions as well as consultation with other professionals on better ways to
address issues being faced. Some of the policy aspects have been posing a significant hindrance
to entities while being of little help in ensuring quality care. The policy should be revamped to
focus on value-based care that will meet the needs of the citizens. Other improvements can be
adopted to ensure patients have access to their information electronically as technology has
advanced at no cost (Moore & Frye, 2019). Organizations should be encouraged to invest
significantly in data privacy methods that ensure patients' data is secure. Also, notable measures
should be adopted to ensure readily available information can be assessed to facilitate research at
lower costs, which significantly impacts the sector in its entirety.
Biblical Integration
The privacy rule does not apply to the church community since they only provide
religious healing. Even though the act calls for patient information confidentiality, the bible
disregards it but calls for caution in our deeds and thoughts. In Colossians 3:17, the bible states
that everything we do should be done in the name of the Lord and give thanks to Him. This
implies that whoever has access to patient information should utilize it only as required and not
for evil or selfish purposes.
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References
Cohen, I. G., & Mello, M. M. (2018). HIPAA and protecting health information in the 21st
century. Jama, 320(3), 231-232.
Moore, W., & Frye, S. (2019). Review of HIPAA, part 1: history, protected health information,
and privacy and security rules. Journal of nuclear medicine technology, 47(4), 269-272.
Rosenbloom, S. T., Smith, J. R., Bowen, R., Burns, J., Riplinger, L., & Payne, T. H. (2019).
Updating HIPAA for the electronic medical record era. Journal of the American Medical
Informatics Association, 26(10), 1115-1119.
Solove, D. J. (2013). HIPAA turns 10: analyzing the past, present, and future impact.
