When HIPAA was enacted in 2002 it meant a major change for the medical industry and how things were done. There were a lot of stipulations with the act and it was not easy for organizations to comply at first. With the help of HIPAA consulting services however things got better and pretty soon all offices were integrated into the system.
HIPAA stand for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a great thing for patients because it dictates who can look at your records and when. Who is allowed to get or request your records and also the way communications are handled between doctors and doctors offices. Communication was going to be an issue because doctors were use to just sending over charts and records based on another doctors request. Now it will require the patient to become involved.
The privacy rights of each and every patient would be front and center and would become one of the most important pieces of information dealt with during the registration process. Hospitals and medical offices even went as far as to have individual patients sign a document stating that they were indeed given their privacy rights paperwork. No hospital staffer wanted to be caught off guard.
The fines levied against medical offices that did not comply with the laws of the act were heavy. No one wanted to have to pay one of those. Aside from the fines, it was a time when scrutiny of hospitals was at a high level and every one wanted their medical centers to be rated with positive marks, not negative ones. Especially when it comes to the rights of the patients.
One of the biggest new changes was that before any medical information was to be shared with any other agencies for any reason, the patient must give express written consent for the communication to take place. In the past only a faxed request or written request from the doctor would do. Today all the power rests with the patient.
It was not just the doctors and the staff that needed to know what this all meant but the patients too. In addition to signing this and that and being given this and that, patients were now being given HIPAA paperwork explaining what it was and what their rights were. They also had to sign something saying they received that in particular.
Many of the policies that did not deal directly with the patient records and how they can be accessed were regarding the best practices or the proper ways for thing to take place. Like the aforementioned patient paging and medical charts. Other systems include sign in sheets for handing out HIPAA forms, keeping other documents confidential, and a system to alert staff to changes made in a record.
HIPAA consulting has helped the medical industry adapt to the ever changing world that we live in. With the addition of HIPAA laws the records and record keeping policies became a safe haven for patient privacy like it should have been all along. These changes were difficult to adapt to and if not for the consulting agencies it would have been a very long road indeed.
HIPAA stand for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It is a great thing for patients because it dictates who can look at your records and when. Who is allowed to get or request your records and also the way communications are handled between doctors and doctors offices. Communication was going to be an issue because doctors were use to just sending over charts and records based on another doctors request. Now it will require the patient to become involved.
The privacy rights of each and every patient would be front and center and would become one of the most important pieces of information dealt with during the registration process. Hospitals and medical offices even went as far as to have individual patients sign a document stating that they were indeed given their privacy rights paperwork. No hospital staffer wanted to be caught off guard.
The fines levied against medical offices that did not comply with the laws of the act were heavy. No one wanted to have to pay one of those. Aside from the fines, it was a time when scrutiny of hospitals was at a high level and every one wanted their medical centers to be rated with positive marks, not negative ones. Especially when it comes to the rights of the patients.
One of the biggest new changes was that before any medical information was to be shared with any other agencies for any reason, the patient must give express written consent for the communication to take place. In the past only a faxed request or written request from the doctor would do. Today all the power rests with the patient.
It was not just the doctors and the staff that needed to know what this all meant but the patients too. In addition to signing this and that and being given this and that, patients were now being given HIPAA paperwork explaining what it was and what their rights were. They also had to sign something saying they received that in particular.
Many of the policies that did not deal directly with the patient records and how they can be accessed were regarding the best practices or the proper ways for thing to take place. Like the aforementioned patient paging and medical charts. Other systems include sign in sheets for handing out HIPAA forms, keeping other documents confidential, and a system to alert staff to changes made in a record.
HIPAA consulting has helped the medical industry adapt to the ever changing world that we live in. With the addition of HIPAA laws the records and record keeping policies became a safe haven for patient privacy like it should have been all along. These changes were difficult to adapt to and if not for the consulting agencies it would have been a very long road indeed.
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