Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was enacted in 1996 with the aim of making it easier for the public to maintain health cover as well as safeguarding people’s privacy by protecting their medical information. HIPAA improved the health industry because it gives patients more power over their health care data; the Act places precincts on how health care records should be used and released. HIPAA’s privacy rule covers health care plans, employers, business associates, healthcare clearinghouses, healthcare insurers, and any other healthcare provider who pass on health care information in electronic form (Ken, 2015).
One factor that strengthens HIPAA is its ability to protect people’s health care information. HIPAA’s capability to protect people’s personal information has made it gain a lot of support from the public. Giving patients control over their own health information has also been positively received (Gross, 2017). The HIPAA act has reduced medical errors as it has enabled the healthcare providers and patients work together to build medical files, which has promoted the accuracy of medical records. Despite the HIPAA law protecting patient’s healthcare information, it is expensive and increases the healthcare providers’ workload. Essentially, HIPAA regulations compel healthcare organizations to employ full-time personnel to deal with personal privacy data, which is costly. Furthermore, HIPAA only provides the relevant health record information to patients instead of the whole medical files, which may inconvenience some departments. Shortage of Information Technology (IT) security personnel is among the main challenges HIPAA is currently facing (Worth, 2018). Additionally, patient’s access to their medical records is also a challenge to patients as it takes a long time for medical records to be processed.
References
Gross, S. (2017). Advantages & Disadvantages of HIPAA.
Ken, T. (2015). Patient Privacy – The New Threats. Wayback Machine Physicians Practice journal.
Worth, T. (2018). Important HIPAA Compliance Issues in 2018.