Health and Human Services Changes
HIPAA
On January 18, 2013
HHS assembled new rules to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, Enforcement and Breach
Notification Rules. The enforcing of
the rules is done by Leon Rodriguez, the director of Office of Human Rights.
The changes are set by one final rule that has four parts which cover
businesses, individuals, families and descendants of families to further protect
their health information by keeping it confidential.
The main motive behind the changes to HIPAA is to promote accountability
and set rules for healthcare providers to keep their clients health information
protected.
Next, the rules are
set to improve healthcare and keep documents from being breached.
These are actually are revised rules that
were first introduced on July 14, 2010 (Sullivan).
The first rule is written to give businesses responsibility to abide by
being liable for following the final rule.
Now, the rules will also protect the individuals siblings information
from being leaked to schools, and will strengthen the policy of which family
member and descendants can receive copies of your health records (Sullivan). The
original proposed rule stated that there is no breach unless significant harm
was inflicted upon the individual owner of the records.
However the new Omnibus Rule replaced this with a breach is reached when
there is evidence of improper disclosure compromises to the individual owner
have protected health information (Mosquera).
Then, the
consequences that can be administered for not knowing about the final rule can
cost from $100 to $50,000 and if the same violation is committed within one year
the fine can reach up to one and a half million dollars.
These consequences are set to help raise money for healthcare.
The final rule continues to give enforcement agencies the power to press
charges to However, if the final rule was broken before February 18, 2009 the
consequences that were outlined before the HHS created a final rule to HIPAA
will apply (Sullivan).
Works Cited
Sullivan, Tom. "HHS Makes 'sweeping' Changes to HIPAA." Healthcare IT News.
N.p., 18 Jan. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/hhs-makes-sweeping-changes-hipaa?single-page=true>.
Sullivan, Tom. "Quick Parse: 4 Parts to HIPAA Final Rule on Privacy and Security
| Government Health IT." RSS. N.p., 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.govhealthit.com/news/quick-parse-4-parts-hipaa-final-rule-privacy-and-security>.
Sullivan, Tom. "PhysBizTech." Final HIPAA Rule Puts Proof Burden on Covered
Entities. N.p., 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.physbiztech.com/news/final-hipaa-rule-puts-proof-burden-covered-entities?email=chizhang@spsu.edu>.
Sullivan, Tom, and Mary Mosquera. "New HIPAA Rule Seen as Tougher." Healthcare
IT News. N.p., 18 Jan. 2013. Web. 31 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/new-hipaa-rule-seen-tougher?single-page=true>.