HIPPA and You - Is Your Information Safe?:

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPPA was introduced on April 14, 2003. This act was intended to regulate the methods that health care providers use to protect the health records of patients. However, is this enough to protect your privacy?

There are three main purposes to HIPPA, which are:

1. Regain the level of patient trust for health care providers, insurance companies and other entities involved in the health care industry. In recent years, this level of trust has been greatly diminished and as privacy concerns continue to grow, consumers are taking more of an interest in finding out just how much of their information is being shared without their knowledge. HIPPA was instituted to assist health care professionals to regulate their information sharing practices in order to gain the trust of their patients.

2. Improvement of the national health delivery system by implementing a framework that involves states, individual organizations, health systems and individuals. This framework is intended to introduce stricter privacy measures to ensure that patient data is not shared without the knowledge and consent of the patient.

3. Protection for consumer rights to their health care information. HIPPA allows consumers the right to deny access to their health care information and provides a greater amount of control for inappropriate use of health care records.

Why was HIPPA necessary for American consumers? First, valuable private information was being freely shared with pharmaceutical companies, employers, and in some cases, insurance companies. In many instances, consumers were denied services or lost their jobs as a result of this inappropriate sharing of private records. In order to put a definitive end to this problem, stricter regulations were necessary.

Second, there was a great need to improve the quality of health care and standardize information sharing. By making this easier for health care providers to follow a framework, efficiency levels can be improved, making the system function as it should.

There are some downsides to HIPPA, but these eventualities can be planned for in advance, if you are aware of them. If you plan to have family members assisting in your care, or an at-home caregiver, they may not be allowed access to your medical information, which may be necessary for your proper treatment.

This is definitely an issue that should be addressed if you plan to have long-term care provided by your family members. There is specific documentation that you can have on file that will allow your caregivers access to your information, but it must be filed ahead of time. If you are unsure on how to accomplish this, you will need to check with your insurance company or health care provider for more information. Overall, HIPPA has provided necessary help in protecting consumer's privacy, and the sharing of their records.

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