On July 16, 2008 Seattle based Providence Health and Services settled with HHS (Health and Human Services) agreeing to pay them 100,000.00 and implement a detailed Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for violations that occurred on several occasions between Sept. 2005 and March 2006 when Providence employee’s removed backup tapes, optical disks, and laptops, all containing unencrypted electronic protected health information (ePHI) from hospital premises which were later lost or stolen. However, Providence’s cooperation with OCR and CMS enabled HHS to resolve this issue, without imposing any civil monetary penalty against Providence even though ePHI for 386,000 patients was compromised. The CAP that was implemented required Providence to provide training …show more content…
CVS/Caremark agreed to pay $2.5 million and implement a detailed CAP to ensure that protected health information of its customers was disposed of properly. It was reported by a media source that CVS’s employees were throwing away old prescriptions and labels from pill bottles into unsecured dumpsters that the public had access to. CVS/Caremark is one of the largest pharmacy chains and pharmaceutical distributors in the country with over 6,300 stores. Upon completion of the investigation conducted by HHS and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) it was revealed that although CVS had provided training to its employee’s it was not sufficient to cover the disposal of non-electronic PHI consistent with the Privacy …show more content…
It is obvious in all three investigations that the patients are left to fight their court cases alone. When HHS, does these investigations they spend the tax payer’s money, and the money that they get from fining these health care facilities. Why is there no accommodations made for the patients? After all, that is the reason HHS, FTC and OCR are in business. I also feel that we should have a department that is set up to handle these cases, with lawyers to fairly prosecute these large companies for not following our laws correctly. I feel that as an individual it would seem like a very daunting task to win a judgement against a big corporation like New York Presbyterian, or CVS/Caremark even though the judgements against them will almost insure victory for the patients. I feel the government should stand behind these patients, and help them through a problem that could last for years. These days identity theft is on the rise. If we cannot expect the companies that require us to provide this information to process our claims, to handle it properly, then there should be recourse that doesn’t require long court
Membership Services (MSD) at Kaiser Permanente used to be a modest department of sixty staff. However, over the past few years the department has doubled in size, creating minor departmental reorganization. In addition the increase of departmental staffing, several challenges became apparent. The changes included primary job function, as well as the introduction of new network system software which slowed down the processes of other departments. These departments included Claims (who pay the bills for service providers outside of the Kaiser Permanente network), and Patient Business Services (who send invoices to members for services received within Kaiser Permanente). Due to the unforeseen challenges created by the system upgrade, it was decided that MSD would process the calls for both of the affected departments. Unfortunately, this created a catastrophic event of MSD receiving numerous phone calls from upset members—who had received bills a year after the service had been provided. The average Monday call volume had risen from 1,800 to 2,600 calls per day. The average handling time for each phone call had risen as well—from an acceptable standard of 5.6 minutes to an unfavorable 7.2 minutes. The department continued to be kept inundated with these types of calls for the two years that these changes have been effect.
The Texas Medical Institute of Technology, through programs such as Chasing Zero, is bringing a public voice to the issue of healthcare harm. The documentary is a stirring example of the quality issues facing the healthcare system. In 2003, the NQF first introduced the 30 Safe Practices for Better Healthcare, which it hoped all hospitals would adopt (National Quality Forum, 2010). Today the list has grown to 34, yet the number of preventable healthcare harm events continues to rise. The lack of standardization and mandates which require the reporting of events contributes to the absence of meaningful improvement. Perhaps through initiatives such as those developed by TMIT and the vivid and arresting patient stories such as Chasing Zero, change will soon be at hand.
. HIPAA privacy rules are complicated and extensive, and set forth guidelines to be followed by health care providers and other covered entities such as insurance carriers and by consumers. HIPAA is very specific in its requirements regarding the release of information, but is not as specific when it comes to the manner in which training and policies are developed and delivered within the health care industry. This paper will discuss how HIPAA affects a patient's access to their medical records, how and under what circumstances personal health information can be released to other entities for purposes not related to health care, the requirements regarding written privacy policies for covered entities, the training requirements for medical office employees and the consequences for not following the policy.
...fines for breaches. There were federal grants and/or incentives for those organizations and individuals that chose to use the EHR via the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. The people are so sure that the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act would work that they even provide incentives for training programs so that the people can be well educated and knowledgeable in regards to the EHR system. We all have medical records in some physician's office and we would like to know that our medical history is kept safe from those who does not have permission to access our information. Since the HITECH Act allows a variety of random audits, healthcare organizations and individuals will work harder to ensure that they are up to par on all of the federal guidelines in regards to their patients privacy and security.
The internal control breach that involved Massachusetts General Hospital missing records did turn up the regulatory and enforcement heat in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The requirements of HIPPA provide clear guidelines that require all health care providers, in the United States, to give insightful protection of the private patient information. This protection should be done through physical, administrative and technical internal safeguards. The department of health and human resource service in the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced a massive penalty on Massachusetts General Hospital as a measure to enhance their security and privacy regulations (Paxson).
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, most commonly known by its initials HIPAA, was enacted by Congress then signed by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996. This act was put into place in order to regulate the privacy of patient health information, and as an effort to lower the cost of health care, shape the many pieces of our complicated healthcare system. This act also protects individuals from losing their health insurance if they lose their employment or choose to switch employers. . Before HIPAA there was no standard or consistency for the enforcement of the privacy for patients and the rules and regulations varied by state and organizations. HIPAA virtually affects everybody within the healthcare field including but not limited to patients, providers, payers and intermediaries. Although there are many parts of the HIPAA act, for the purposes of this paper we are going to focus on the two main sections and the four objectives of HIPAA, a which are to improve the portability (the capability of transferring from one employee to another) of health insurance, combat fraud, abuse, and waste in health insurance, to promote the expanded use of medical savings accounts, and to simplify the administration of health insurance.
During the 1980’s, medical-related situations continuously occurred that made patients question their insurance policies as well as the privacy of their health care. Congress worked to create a bill containing strict rules regarding insurance policies and availability for one to keep their insurance if they are to move jobs. These rules were soon applied to all medical facilities and faculty and titled the “Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act”.The H.I.P.A.A. policies brought about change in professionalism, medical standards, taxing, and enforcement. Throughout history, maintaining patient privacy has always been a problem in the medical field. Patients have the right to their privacy and the information that they do not want to disclose should be kept privately. Since this was an overly occurring problem, the congress believed that they should make a law to fix this problem. On August 21, 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed by congress and President Bill Clinton.
...ts to cover their mistakes. This is the exact opposite of what the country needs. Why should costs go up because of denied treatment? The big concern is whether or not government really understands the great difficulty in trying to control HMO’s and other health care programs without a nationalized program. Since there are some 6 million people using Medicare in HMO’s something needs to be done to ensure these patients the treatment that they need.
The Key points of this article is to show the consequences when violating HIPAA and to show how the Office of Civil Rights is taking action to try and secure the patient's information. The
Health Care workers are constantly faced with legal and ethical issues every day during the course of their work. It is important that the health care workers have a clear understanding of these legal and ethical issues that they will face (1). In the case study analysed key legal and ethical issues arise during the initial decision-making of the incident, when the second ambulance crew arrived, throughout the treatment and during the transfer of patient to the hospital. The ethical issues in this case can be described as what the paramedic believes is the right thing to do for the patient and the legal issues control what the law describes that the paramedic should do in this situation (2, 3). It is therefore important that paramedics also
Physically stolen information can result from records being recovered after they were improperly disposed of or the medical chart being taken when the backs of the medical staff are turned. These are both pretty scary scenarios to consider as the outcome has numerous negative effects upon the patients life. Unauthorized disclosure of patient information is the second most common form of violation, with a total of 20%. This means the health care staff is letting the patient’s information be seen and used, either knowingly or unknowingly, by somebody other than the professionals and the patient themselves. These numbers are both astronomical as well as preventable. The US Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights states that “between April 2003 and January 2013 they received 91,000 complaints of HIPAA violations, in which 22,000 led to enforcement actions of varying kinds (from settlements to fines) and 521 led to referrals to the US Dept of Justice (criminal actions).” Prosecution rates may continue to rise, however, it is now our responsibility, as medical staff, to prevent the information from being release in the first place as well as to keep our patients information
... of potential threats such as unauthorized access of the patient information. Health care leaders must always remind their employees that casual review for personal interest of patients ' protected health information is unacceptable and against the law just like what happened in the UCLA health systems case (Fiske, 2011). Health care organizations need clear policies and procedures to prevent, detect, contain, and correct security violations. Through policies and procedures, entities covered under HIPAA must reasonably restrict access to patient information to only those employees with a valid reason to view the information and must sanction any employee who is found to have violated these policies.In addition, it is critical that health care organizations should implement awareness and training programs for all members of its workforce (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013).
According to the report provided by the consultant, the employees at this facility were not taking precautions in safeguarding the patient’s health information. Therefore, the employees at this facility were in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). It is important for employees to understand the form of technology being used and the precautions they must take to safeguard patient information.
patient history is neglected resulting to a serious health crisis or ever death and lawsuits.
HIPAA, Privacy Act and other major healthcare laws put emphasis on security of healthcare data and information. A major or minor breach can cause an organization to face legal liability that can lead to loss of goodwill (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, 2015). The