The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has helped change the healthcare industry by ensuring sensitive health information is shared securely. Medical assistants need to be aware of HIPAA laws to ensure their patients’ information is handled properly. Prism Career Institute offers a comprehensive medical assistant program in Cherry Hill and West Atlantic City townships, New Jersey, that covers medical law and ethics. Here, we discuss HIPAA further and how it affects the role of a medical assistant.
What Is HIPAA?
To protect patient medical records and other identifiable health information, HIPAA was passed in 1996. The HIPAA privacy rule is a series of national standards that all providers, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses must follow. The law was created in response to medical records being kept electronically. If a healthcare organization or an individual in a private practice has access to patient information, they must have a plan in place to protect it.
How HIPAA Affects Medical Assistants
No matter the clinical setting or organization, every healthcare worker must be aware of HIPAA privacy standards and abide by them. That is why it is crucial for medical assistants to fully understand what is expected of them in complying with the law. Factors medical assistants should be aware of regarding HIPAA include:
Discretion
Medical assistants must remember who they can and cannot share important medical information with regarding a patient. Medical assistants should be made aware of which individuals are approved and what information they should be given.
Patient Rights
Medical assistants should be aware of what rights a patient has under HIPAA law. An understanding of the law better protects a medical assistant from infringing on patient rights. Patients have several rights regarding their information, such as:
- Patients can access and copy their records for their own recordkeeping
- Patients can determine who their personal health information is shared with and how it’s done
- Patients can have corrections made to their health information
- Patients can find out who has asked for and viewed their records
HIPAA Policies of a Healthcare Organization
The HIPAA law states that healthcare organizations must have policies and procedures put in place to protect sensitive information about patients and their medical records. Medical assistants should understand that although the goal of protecting information may be the same, different healthcare organizations may have different policies and procedures to do so.
Because every healthcare organization and worker is under HIPAA regulations, initial and reoccurring training must be completed. This training is essential to make sure all staff members, including medical assistants, understand what is expected of them.
Consequences of Violating HIPAA
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is responsible for enforcing HIPAA law. The punishment for failing to comply with the HIPAA law and violating a patient’s rights can be very expensive for a healthcare organization. The penalties are determined by the severity of the violation and the level of negligence. These fines can range from $100 to upward of $1.5 million and may be considered civil or criminal violations, depending on the circumstances. With such strict penalties, healthcare organizations and workers must take HIPAA very seriously.
Learning about Medical Law at Prism Career Institute
Our students learn about HIPAA and other regulations to help prepare for their careers. For more information about the Medical Assistant Program at Prism Career Institute in Cherry Hill and West Atlantic City townships, NJ, contact us today.