HIPAA THE IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE essays

HIPAA THE IMPACT ON HEALTHCARE essays Many different things have impacted the medical community in recent years including technological changes that have facilitated greater communications and medical discoveries. From a legislative perspective, the enactment of HIPPA rules and regulations by far is one of the most impactful. According to the American Medical Association (AMA), HIPPA "brings the most sweeping changes to healthcare since the creation of Before discussing the changes it is first critical to analyze what exactly HIPPA is. HIPPA stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, also known as Public Law 104-191 (HIPPA Group, 2002). HIPPA has accomplished the following related to healthcare:  ª Ensures access to health insurance, and also guarantees portability  ª Provides continuity of healthcare insurance coverage and prevents and strictly prohibits discrimination  ª Works to protect confidential health information and medical records  ª Enables patients to have more control over their records  ª Self employed persons are allowed health insurance tax deductions  ª Provides for better healthcare efficiencies HIPPA has affected the healthcare industry in a variety of ways. One manner in which it has impacted health providers is in the way they conduct business electronically. E based business and services are becoming increasingly popular in part due to the internet. Healthcare organizations can now share information about patients, store records and share insight related to patient conditions via electronic communications. As anyone knows however, due to security issues and ease of hacker access on the internet, it has become increasingly important that healthcare transactions be monitored from a safety and privacy perspective. HIPPA legisl...