Abstract
The paper presents the argumentative analysis of patient rights under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). In this regard, the paper examines pros and cons of the act and the facilitation of care services through it. For the purpose of exploring the topic, significant sources are utilized, and adequate amount of data has been collected through which in-depth analysis can be carried out. In addition to this, the paper can be considered as a foundation of awareness regarding the rights provide to the patient in order to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the provided data. On the other hand, HIPAA permits health care professionals as well as insurance companies to follow privacy rules alongside using and disclosing only minimum information required for the completion of the transaction in accordance with the request of the patient. Furthermore, the paper provides a conclusion that implementation of HIPAA is of great importance for the protection of patient rights and facilitation of high-quality care services.
Patient rights are considered as the basic rules that are conducted between patients and health care professionals alongside involving institutions and other individuals through which support is provided. On the other hand, a patient is a person who presents with a request for assessment and evaluation or being evaluated by health care provider (HHS, 2016). In order to provide patients with significant information by maintaining the confidentiality of their provided data, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) aims at the reduction of data abuses by allowing the patient to the right to access and carry out inspection of their health information (HHS, 2016). In this regard, the aim of this essay is to examine the pros and cons associated with the regulation of HIPAA.
As a matter of fact, HIPAA was approved by Congress to facilitate the confidentiality concerns of patients’ private data. In this regard, all the personnel involved in the process of healthcare services must abide by the regulations of the electronic exchange, security and privacy of health information. According to Andrews (2010), HIPAA legally allows the patients to review and even correct their personal medical records if they find any possible error. In addition to this, the individuals are also facilitated even after changing their jobs with the rights of keeping the coverage of their health insurance. Besides, the patients having pre-existing conditions are also facilitated with the similar healthcare services even after changing their jobs that eradicate the prospects of discrimination against employees.
According to Murphy-Abdouch (2015), HIPAA has provided the rights of accessing the medical records to the patients. In addition to this, the ‘Act of American Recovery and Investment’ (ARRA) has extended the patients’ rights as HER systems make them capable of accessing their medical records. However, there remain certain limitations on accessing the medical information through patient portals, as all the records are not possibly available or accessible in electronic form. Therefore, HIPPA facilitates these concerns associated with the patients’ rights by allowing the service providers to give them the electronic or paper copies of their healthcare information. However, patients have to pay a certain amount in this regard that serves as a certain convict associated with the policies of HIPAA as patients would feel discouraged while accessing their private medical information for managing their health in a better way. In this regard, the approach of HIPAA in determining the fees of the medical records tends to facilitate the confidentiality rights of patients at all the levels. Nevertheless, Murphy-Abdouch (2015) states that the concerns associated with the costing of medical records have been aligned with the” Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act” (HITECH) since 2013. According to the HITECH Act, patients can rightfully request the access of their medical information for which they have to pay the fee for the electronic copies that will not be more than the cost required to the labor and supply of the records.
According to Dullabh, et al. (2014) the prospect of Patients’ data and its confidentiality gets critical when there are certain errors in the medication lists and other relevant information. More specifically, the data quality generates problems if patients are accessing wrong information pertaining to their health. The statistics analyzed by the study of Dullabh et al. (2010) affirm this perspective of medication errors as 81 to 95 percent records of the patients were found to have significant errors. These possible errors seem to be the disadvantage of HIPAA as it is HIPAA that has been providing the patients with their medical records. The misinterpretations of the information and the possible security concerns tend to affect the legitimacy of HIPAA and its regulations. In addition to this, there are also the issues of cost in managing the technical aspects of the electronic healthcare records that ultimately requires proficient concern individuals (Health Research Funding, 2015). However, these possible issues are eradicated if the healthcare providers contribute to educating the patients for preventing errors. The constitutes of HIPAA seem appropriate requiring the equal contribution of the patients in making adequate decisions while facing any possible issue pertaining to their rights. Even patients must have information of the medications along with the knowledge of alternate medicines or the most likely actions to be taken into account in case of any possible medication error (Dullabh, Sondheimer, Katsh, & Evans, 2014).
According to Blesi (2015), one of the major goals underpinned by the privacy rule is to provide assurance in terms of protection being practiced to avoid health care data breach and promoting high quality care services. In addition to this, the rules also balance aspects related to permission regarding the use of the data alongside protecting the privacy of an individual who seek care. HIPAA is responsible for the provision of opportunities through a person can make amendments in health information by clearly stating that how the data will be disclosed or who will be provided with the permission to review the information (Blesi, 2015). United States is the country in which increased influx of immigrants can be observed every year. By focusing different health conditions in patients coming from different backgrounds, HIPAA assists in the prevention of discrimination by simplifying the process of health care.
With the numerous pros entrenched by the HIPAA, one of the cons associated with the regulation of the act is the allocation of large sums of money for complying HIPAA and this task needs to be carried out by health care professionals involved in the facilitation of care. In the light of the aforementioned aspect, the health care professional believes that the quality of the care will be altered due to HIPAA, and contributes to substantial difficulties in the attainment of vital information required for patient care (Des Jardins & Burton, 2015). Moreover, for maintaining order, HIPAA is instilled with the aspect of hiring business for managing the health care as well as technology used including computers and software that keep the data secure and confidential. As a result of this aspect, paperwork will be increased along with the increase in cost and labor.
The act is presented with an urge of implementing extensive use of technology as well as electronic format for storing, processing, and sharing data. The technological devices require considerable costs for maintenance and training of health care professionals through they can be educated about the operations of the devices (Des Jardins & Burton, 2015). Therefore, the utilization of such devices has placed the health care system at constant mainstay of data theft threats by unauthorized individuals.
Conclusively, HIPAA mainly aims at the eradication of threats posed by data breaching and misuse of the patient’s information by aligning strict protection with the aspect of patient rights. The patient rights under HIPAA also helps in the determination of limits in terms of circumstances that triggers disclosure of personal information of an individual other than covered entities.
References
Andrews, J. (2015, Sep 27). What Are Some Pros & Cons of HIPAA? Retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/75368-pros-cons-hipaa/
Blesi, M. (2015). Medical Assisting: Administrative and Clinical Competencies. Mason: Cengage Learning.
Des Jardins, T., & Burton, G. G. (2015). Clinical Manifestations & Assessment of Respiratory Disease. New York: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Dullabh, P. M., Sondheimer, N. K., Katsh, E., & Evans, M. A. (2014). How Patients Can Improve the Accuracy of their Medical Records. eGEMs, 2(3), 1080.
Health Research Funding. (2015). Pros and Cons of HIPAA. Retrieved from http://healthresearchfunding.org/pros-cons-hipaa/
HHS. (2016). Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/laws-regulations/
Murphy-Abdouch, K. (2015). Patient Access to Personal Health Information: Regulation vs. Reality. Perspectives in Health Information Management, 12(1c), 677–700.
