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| Volume 1
: Issue 3 : Fall 2002 |
HIPAA |
Update |
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In the last issue of the MPI Advisor, we provided physicians and
healthcare practitioners with a comprehensive overview of HIPAA,
the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
and its impact upon the medical profession, specifically as it relates
to private practice. This newsletter reviews some of the most recent
revisions to the statute and their implications for medical practices
across the country.
The Bush Administration recently revised some of the standards
initially adopted by the Clinton Administration. Specifically, providers,
including physicians and hospitals, no longer need to obtain written
consent from patients before using or disclosing personal health
information, (PHI) for treatment or paying claims. Moreover, physicians
and hospitals are also not culpable for incidental disclosures of
PHI provided that they are involved in the direct care of patients.
Examples of this include the use of sign-in sheets in waiting rooms
and conversing with patients in semiprivate hospital rooms or exam
rooms about their care or treatment.
New standards adopted by the Bush Administration, require providers
and hospitals to make a “good faith effort” to obtain
a patient’s written acknowledgement of their receipt of the
“Notice of Privacy Practices” when physicians or health
providers render service to their patients. The exception to obtaining
a patient’s written acknowledgement prior to receiving treatment
includes emergency treatment situations. Furthermore, practices
and healthcare institutions must retain copies of the acknowledgement
for six years from the date of its creation or the date when it
was last in effect.
The new standards adopted by the Bush Administration also assure
a patients’ access to their medical records and the right
to request changes to correct errors. An example of this would be
a telephone conversation between a physician and his or her patient
that does not appear on a copy of the medical record. They also
limit the information that can be disclosed for marketing purposes
and prohibit the disclosure of a patient’s medical records
to an employer without the patient’s specific authorization.
The standards adopted for the HIPAA statute allow researchers to
use medical records as long as identifying information, such as
patients’ names, addresses and Social Security numbers are
eliminated from the records.
Finally, please keep in mind that the standards adopted for HIPAA
requires all private practices and healthcare institutions to comply
with the statute, regardless of practice size, a grave misconception.
To learn more about HIPAA please visit http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/hipaa/.
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