HIPAA Rules and Regulations

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was created to protect the privacy of personal health information. Patients’ health information is to be remained confidential not only because of it is mandated by law; it also involved the code of ethics in the health care field.  HIPAA is an example of the combination of ethics and the law. HIPAA provides a guideline for privacy, security, and enforcement on health information and the use of it, which is strongly tied to the responsibilities of the ethics committees in health care organizations.

The Federal Register published the amendments to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement, and Breach Notification Rules in January, 2013 to clarify confusions and to correct many provisions that had not worked in the original HIPAA published in 1996 (Rothstein, 2013). The Revised HIPAA made changes which are mandated by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HIPAA Privacy Rule provide patient with protection for individually identifiable health information held by business including health care organizations (Brown, 2008). The act aimed to balance the disclosure of health information needed for patient care and the violation of patient privacy.

Having (2008), conducted a study on the perception of ethics committee in hospitals with and without a HIPAA officer in rural areas. The study indicated that respondents believed that an ethics committee with at least one HIPAA officer is more likely to be involved in and impacted by HIPAA related compliances. HIPAA officer within those ethics committees also agreed that the ethics committee should be involved in HIPAA related issues more often.

Ethical decisions do not only involve with decisions for treatment and life and death situations, they also includes the administration portion of the health care organization that involves operation and patient care. The HIPPA Security Rule covers the safeguards of patients’ identifiable information in the administrative, physical and technical aspect to assure the balance between confidentiality and availability of patient’s information. Patient privacy is important part of an organization’s code of ethics, and should be taken into account in while considering the balance between ethic, treatment and patient rights.

Resource

Brown, B. (2008). Striking a Balance between HIPAA and Care Coordination. Journal Of

Health Care Compliance, 10(6), 27-70.

Having, K., Hale, D., & Lautar, C. (2008). Ethics Committees in the Rural Midwest: Exploring

the Impact of HIPAA. The Journal Of Rural Health: Official Journal Of The American Rural Health Association And The National Rural Health Care Association, 24(3), 316-320. doi:10.1111/j.1748-0361.2008.00175.x

Rothstein, M. (2013). HIPAA Privacy Rule 2.0. Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 41(2), 525-

528.