Controversial Health Information Management Issues - Essay Example

Controversial Health Information Management Issues: HIPAA Privacy Rule  Introduction The rules and policies implemented in healthcare sector raise many controversies because of the different opinions people may have with respect to a topic. The health insurance sector is one of the heavily criticized areas in the American healthcare system. Many people believe that the American healthcare insurance protect only the interests of the greedy private insurance companies rather than the interests of the common people.

The recent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule is also brought many controversies. This paper briefly analyses the controversies associated with the HIPAA Privacy Rule. HIPAA regulations and its DrawbacksThe HIPAA Privacy Rule makes sure those minimum standards for protecting the privacy of individually identifiable health information. This rule provides certain rights to individuals like the rights to access and amend their health information and to obtain a record of when and why their Protected Health Information (PHI) has been shared with others for certain purposes.

Moreover The Privacy Rule sets certain conditions under which researchers can use the PHI when necessary to conduct research (What Are the Purpose and Background of the Privacy Rule?, 2007). The regulations with respect to the PHI is not made clear and even the hospital authorities don’t have enough idea about the PHI regulations. Thus they were forced to communicate the patient information or condition to the families of the hospitalized over the telephone even if the patient is critically ill.

Many healthcare professionals lost their job because of the wrong interpretation of the HIPAA rules and many others forced to pay heavy amounts as penalties. Nurses who don’t have much idea about the HIPAA regulations are staying away from disclosing the personal details of their patients even when it is badly needed for somebody else who might be a close relative of the patient. Gross, (2010) has mentioned that HIPAA regulations place a large and expensive burden on companies who have access to private health data by adding to the workload of health care providers and others (Gross, 2010).

As protection of privacy is taken as a serious matter in the HIPAA regulations, big companies and researchers were forced to take extreme care while using the private data. The HIPAA act thus raised many concerns and fear among medical practitioners in conducting research. The increased liability and unwanted expenses may force them to stay away from researches which will affect the healthcare system drastically. HIPAA also put some regulations on certain group health plans and individual health insurance policies which affect the common people.

The healthcare insurance sector in America is already messed up and the new regulations increased the problems further. Conclusions The HIPAA Privacy Rule has created panic among the healthcare system in America. Neither the medical practitioners, nor the researchers or the patients know much about this rule which created a messed up situation in the healthcare industry. It is necessary to redefine the HIPAA Privacy Rules in order to make it more convenient to the patients as well as the medical practitioners.

References1. Gross S (2010) Advantages & Disadvantages of HIPAA, Retrieved on 23 June 2010 from http://www.ehow.com/about_5113726_advantages-disadvantages-hipaa.html2. What Are the Purpose and Background of the Privacy Rule?(2007), Retrieved on 23 June 2010 from http://privacyruleandresearch.nih.gov/pr_04.asp