Essay On HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) “is a large set of health care regulation and standards that protect the privacy of patients’ medical records and other personal health information. “HIPAA is broad in scope; covers a whole host of health care providers, facilities, and entities; and has had sweeping implications for the health care industry” Pointer, 2006). The HIPAA Privacy regulations require health care providers and companies, including their business partners, to follow and develop the course of action that assure the privacy and security of protected health information (PHI) when it is sent, accepted, managed, or shared. All this are need to be applied to all forms of PHI, including paper, oral, and electronic, etc. In addition, the regulation also increases the purchaser controls, the use and disclosure of individual medical information. According to U.S Department of Health and Human …show more content…
Legal consequences may result in monetary fines and civil or criminal penalties or both. The penalties may consist of a large fine up to a maximum of $250,000 and jail time or prison sentencing up to 10 years. The criminal penalty depends on the severity of the offense. When a patient’s medical information has been intentionally released it can have the consequences of a jail sentence for at least one-year and a $50,000 fine. When someone obtains medical health information by lying this can result in a jail sentence, which consist of five-years and $100,000 fine. By releasing a patient’s medical health information to cause harm or selling a patient’s medical information can lead to a 10-year jail sentence and a $250,000 fine