hipaa violations Essay Example For Students

hipaa violations Essay There all kinds of HIPAA violation cases out there. Whether they violate the security, administrative, or technical safeguards data breaches often occur within certain parameters. Some HIPAA violation types are: A individual didn?t know they violated HIPAA and for that can get a fined a minimum penalty of $100 and a maximum fine of 50,000. Another cause is willful neglect but corrected within time for that you can receive a minimum penalty of $10,000 and a maximum fine of $50,000. Another category of a HIPAA violation includes covered entities and individuals that knowingly breached the HIPAA rules (criminals). A HIPAA breach committed with intent to sell, transfer or use individually identifiable health information for personal or financial gain or malicious harm can result in fines of $250,000 and imprisonment for up to ten years. Here are four different . Cignet Health Care of Temple Hills Maryland was fined 4.3 million for HIPAA violations. Cignet failed to provide several patien ts with copies of their health records, Cignet also failed to respond to the patients and HHS of Civil Rights. HHS tried for more than two years to contact Cignet however in the end Cignet showed willing full neglect to comply with Privacy Rules. A Seattle based health system has agreed to pay $100,000 HIPAA fine to HHS as well as improve its medical data security after failing to properly secure data backup tapes, disks, and laptops. This marks the first time that HHS has agreed to a resolution Agreement. During 2005 and 2006 medical data was stolen from providence health and services several times, with backup tapes, optical disks, and laptops being lost or stolen repeatedly. The unencrypted personal health information of more than 386,000 patients was compromised. Accretive debt collector based out of Chicago and licensed in Minnesota as a debt collector was sued. They had thousands of Minnesota patient?s personal health information which they shouldn?t have had access to. The co mpany is being sued because they failed to disclose to the patients how their records were being used, and they failed to protect their records. The lawsuit seeks to stop accretive from containing data collections. OCR investigated UCLA Health System after receiving complaints from two celebrity patients. The investigation showed that from 2005-2008 unauthorized employees repeatedly looked at electronic protected health information of many UCLAHS patients. The investigation also showed that they failed to supply sufficient security measures. If you believe that a covered entity violated your or someone?s health information privacy rights or committed another violation of the privacy of security rule, you file a complaint with OCR. OCR can investigate complaints against covered entities. A covered entity is a health plan, health care clearing house, any health care provider that conducts certain health care transaction electronically. When you file a complaint you must file in writin g, either on paper or electronically by mail, fax, or e-mail. You must name the covered entity involved and describe the acts or omissions you believe violated the requirements of the privacy or security rule and it must be filed within 180 days of when you know that the act or omission complained of occurred. OCR may extend the 180-day period if you can show good cause. Anyone can file a complaint alleging a violation of privacy or security rule. Under HIPAA an entity cannot retaliate against you for filing a complaint. You should notify OCR immediately in the event any retaliatory actions occur. Here is five ways to avoid HIPAA violations in the social media. 1.Don?t talk about patients, even in general terms. It is not worth your time an example of this would be don?t post things like had a patient in the ER last night with alcohol-induced liver disease. 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The common causes for a HIPAA breach were theft of patient health information, unauthorized access to the data, human error, loss and improper disposal of patient records. There should be limited access to patient health information, and employees should know where the information is located. Although the original privacy and security law passed in 1996, enforcement rules were added seven years later. Covered entities are covered under the law, meaning anyone who comes in contact with protected information is liable. Patients now have access to their protected health information. Failure to comply could land a facility with fines or at least a slap on wrist and a corrective action plan. References:1.HIPAA bares teeth $4.3 million dollar fine for privacy violation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://threatpost.com/en-us/blogs/hipaa-bares-its-teeth-43m-fine-privacy-violation-0223112.AG sues health care services firm for alleged patient privacy violation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/01/19/swanson-accretive-health-lawsuit/3.UCLA fined $865,500 for privacy violation. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/hipaa-privacy-ucla-fine-ocr-42757-1,html4. 7 tips to avoid hipaa violations in social media. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.kevinmd.com// 7-tips-avoid-hipaa-violations-social-media.ht