Introduction
Healthcare organizations and professionals have a responsibility to ensure that patients’ confidentiality is properly safeguarded. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is one of the legislations that has been established to ensure that confidentiality is maintained in the healthcare sector. HIPAA has played a significant role in ensuring that healthcare professionals are on the forefront in the protection of patient privacy. The Title II Administrative Simplification Act enabled the establishment of standards that would act as a guide in electronic healthcare transactions for employers and medical providers. Life Hope Labs is one of the medical organizations that has engaged in a HIPAA violation that led to fine payment. The laboratory failed to provide a personal representative access to medical records within the stipulated time under HIPAA right to access. Medical organizations and providers are required to promote the safety of protected health information while also enhancing access for appropriate persons.
Information Technology Impact on Health Care Systems
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), is a piece of legislation that was enacted at the federal level with the intention of safeguarding the confidentiality of individuals’ personal and medical information. It set national standards for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically protected health information (ePHI). HIPAA had a focus on protecting health related data while also guiding its transmission within and outside a healthcare institution. The Act also sought to eliminate any cases of fraud and abuse in the healthcare sector.
Protection of patient privacy and sensitive medical information has been significantly improved as a result of the implementation of HIPAA across the nation’s healthcare institutions. In order to maintain compliance with the standards and secure electronic protected health information, healthcare providers are required by the Act to put in place protections that are physical, administrative, and technical (Edemekong et al., 2022). This entails doing routine risk assessments, providing employees with training, and putting in place various security measures like as firewalls and encryption.
Before disclosing a patient’s personal information or medical history to other healthcare providers, insurers, or researchers, HIPAA stipulates that healthcare professionals must first seek the patient’s consent. Changes brought about by HIPAA have played a role in increasing people’s faith in the healthcare system has increased, which in turn has made them more ready to share their medical information with healthcare practitioners. Compliance with HIPAA requirements has led to a significant increase in administrative and financial obligations that healthcare providers have to cover (Edemekong et al., 2022). This requires medical stakeholders to allocate more resources to ensure that there is no violation of HIPAA requirements.
The Title II Administrative Simplification Act is a provision of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The Act laid out standards that were aimed at promoting efficacy and efficiency in the healthcare system. Any electronic transmission carried out in the system has to follow particular standards necessary for patient confidentiality. These transactions included enrollment for benefits and the filing of claims. Proper enforcement of the Act resulted in lower administrative expenses and an increase in the precision of the data that was shared among healthcare providers, health plans, and government organizations. In addition, the Act incorporated requirements to protect the confidentiality of patients’ medical records as well as their security. Through the standardization of electronic transactions and the protection of patient privacy, the Title II Administrative Simplification Act was a significant contributor to the overall improvement in the efficacy and efficiency of the United States healthcare system. Healthcare professionals and institutions that fail to adhere to the Act face fines that vary according to a breach’s severity.
Data Breach Case
This section provides an analysis of a HIPAA data breach case that involved Life Hope Labs. Life Hope Labs is a medical laboratory that offers its services in Sandy Springs, Georgia. The main services offered in the laboratory include molecular testing, pharmacogenetic testing, virus, and antibody tests. The organization seeks to provide accurate test results which are necessary for the management of patient care. The data breach that Life Hope Labs engaged in the case is a failure to offer timely access to medical records. HIPAAs’ right to access indicates that healthcare organizations have to honor a request for patient medical records within 30 days after the request is made. Healthcare institutions are allowed to delay sharing such information for up to 30 days but have to inform the requester about the delay and when the request is to be fulfilled. A new HIPAA compliance was established in 2019 with an aim to identify institutions that were not complying with the right to access.
OCR was notified by a personal representative of a deceased patient that Life Hope Labs had failed to provide access to the patient’s medical data. On July 7, 2021, the personal representative submitted a request to get the medical records from Life Hope Labs; however, the request was not honored by the laboratory (HIPAA Journal, 2023). It took 225 days for the medical laboratory to finally be able to furnish the records that were sought (HIPAA Journal, 2023). Following the receipt of the complaint, OCR came to the conclusion that Life Hope Labs had violated the right to access guaranteed by HIPAA. Only the deceased patient’s personal representative had been impacted by Life Hope Labs’ failure to honor the request for a patient’s health information.
The medical laboratory did not confess any wrongdoing but agreed to settle the matter by paying a penalty of $16,500 for the alleged infringement (HIPAA Journal, 2023). In addition, the terms of the settlement required Life Hope Labs to devise a corrective plan in order to establish appropriate written policies in accordance to the HIPAA privacy laws and the granting of access to patient health information. Also, within a period of thirty days, the laboratory was required to provide HIPAA training and communicate the policies to its members. Life Hope Labs is also going to be supervised for a period of two years to make sure that the provisions of the settlement are properly carried out.
Conclusion
In conclusion, medical organizations and providers are required to promote the safety of protected health information while also enhancing access for appropriate persons. Selecta Labs is another local organization that is likely to commit a breach similar to that of Life Hope Labs. Selecta Labs has specialized in genetic testing for Cancer, DNA, and drug reactions. It would be necessary for Selecta Labs to implement written policies related to HIPAA privacy and right to access to ensure that employees are aware of requirements. In this case, employees in Selecta Labs should be aware that they have to honor a request for medical records within 30 days failure to which the organization is likely to face fines.
References
Edemekong, P. F., Annamaraju, P., & Haydel, M. J. (2018). Health insurance portability and accountability act. StatPearls. Web.
HIPAA Journal. (2023). Diagnostic lab settles medical record access case for $16,500. HIPAA Journal. Web.